NY Times: “The Arkansas secretary of state on Wednesday rejected an effort to put an abortion-rights amendment on the ballot this November, saying the campaign had failed to submit some of the necessary paperwork.
Less than a week ago, organizers said they had successfully submitted more than 101,000 signatures in support of the effort, a few thousand more than the required minimum. Last Friday, the day of the deadline, they triumphantly dropped off boxes of petitions, cheering in the halls of the State Capitol.
But in a letter on Wednesday, John Thurston, the secretary of state, said the group had failed to submit a sworn statement both identifying paid canvassers by name and confirming that those canvassers had been properly educated on how to collect signatures.”