Learn how direct democracy works
State roles
Two big offices, two different jobs
Voters see one ballot. The process behind it is a sequence of gates. Either office can stop a measure before Arkansans ever vote.
Attorney General — the title desk
Before most committees can circulate at scale, they must get a popular name and ballot title certified. Since Act 194 of 2023, that filing goes to the Attorney General, not the Secretary of State. The AG has a short statutory clock (ten business days under that act) to certify the language, substitute a “more suitable and correct” title, or reject it.
A rejection is not a vote on the policy. It is a finding that the title is misleading, incomplete, or otherwise fails legal standards. In practice it burns calendar: sponsors must rewrite, resubmit, and wait again while the signature window shrinks. Until the title is certified, there is no lawful petition to walk.
That is how the Attorney General’s gate lands on the Secretary of State’s desk. The Secretary of State cannot count signatures on a petition that never got a certified title. Title delay is signature delay.
Secretary of State — the signature desk
After circulation, petitions are filed with the Secretary of State. The office runs a two-step intake the Arkansas Supreme Court has described in Miller v. Thurston (2020): first a facial review (an internal checklist that can “cull” signatures); then, only if enough facially valid signatures remain, a check of whether those signers are registered voters.
Facial review is where technicalities bite. A popular-name mismatch, a missing paid-canvasser certification, a canvasser address the office will not accept, or a background-check affidavit that uses the wrong verb can take tens of thousands of signatures to zero before anyone checks whether the signer was a registered voter.
The Elections Division also interprets election law for counties, publishes results, and chairs the State Board of Election Commissioners. Direct democracy is not a side hobby of this office. It is one of the Secretary of State’s core election duties.
Treat signature gathering as a responsibility: one honest signature at a time, with no shortcuts around witness rules or eligibility.
Campaign position. We believe the ballot initiative process should use volunteers only to collect signatures—committees can raise and spend for marketing, training, and materials, but not to pay canvassers by the signature or the hour. In our view, paid canvassing is the same class of problem as dark money: it lets cash substitute for real consent. What statute allows today is for the General Assembly and voters to decide; this is the standard we will advocate for in public and support in law.
Sequence
From title review to the statewide ballot
Simplified. Sponsors and treasurers should work from current statutes, Attorney General guidance, and Secretary of State instructions.
Ballot title and popular name (Attorney General)
Sponsors file proposed language with the Attorney General. The AG reviews the popular name and ballot title, may demand a rewrite, or may substitute language. Circulation at scale waits on that certificate. Confirm the certified text before you print a single petition page.
Petition and circulation
After certification, committees print petitions that must match the certified popular name and ballot title. Circulators follow rules for who may sign, witness and notary requirements, and paid-canvasser paperwork. A page that does not match the certificate can be counted as zero later.
Valid signatures (thresholds for 2026)
Targets are a percentage of votes for Governor in the last gubernatorial election. For 2026, widely published figures are about 90,704 for an initiated constitutional amendment, about 72,563 for an initiated statute, and about 54,422 for a veto referendum—plus county-distribution rules. Confirm each cycle with the Secretary of State.
File with the Secretary of State
Petitions are due months before a November election (often around early July—verify the official calendar). The Secretary of State’s facial review can reject pages for technical defects before any signature is checked against the official voter rolls. Sponsors then have a short window to sue.
Ballot placement and the vote
Only if enough facially valid signatures survive, and verification confirms them, does the measure go on the statewide ballot. Legislatively referred measures skip signatures but still appear on the same ballot. Court review, if any, happens on a compressed clock.
The last decade · Attorney General
How the title desk has been used as a gate
A title rejection does not have to mention the politics of the measure to change the politics of the calendar. These are documented examples, with the AG’s stated reasons and what happened next.
2023 — LEARNS Act referendum title rejected
Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students (CAPES) filed a referendum title to put the LEARNS Act to a public vote. Attorney General Tim Griffin used the full ten-business-day clock under Act 194, then rejected the popular name and ballot title as misleading and inadequate. He said they “failed to explain the impact of a vote for or against the measure and failed to adequately summarize the LEARNS Act.” CAPES had to start over while the 90-day referendum clock after session still ran. Source: Arkansas Advocate, April 24, 2023.
2025–26 — successive title rejections, then no time left to walk
University of Arkansas students seeking a constitutional “clean and healthy environment” amendment had multiple popular names and ballot titles rejected by the Attorney General in 2025 and 2026 (including versions styled “Keep Arkansas Natural” and “The Natural Environment Amendment”) as misleading or omitting material provisions. Organizers told the Arkansas Times on May 1, 2026, they were pausing until 2028 because certification delays left too little time to collect statewide signatures. Source: Arkansas Times; AG opinions 2025-098, 2025-128, and 2026-034.
The Secretary of State does not write those AG opinions. The SOS does inherit the damage: a late certificate means a shorter circulation, more rushed pages, and a higher chance that a later facial review will throw the filing out.
The last decade · Secretary of State
How petitions have been thrown out on technicalities
These are not rumors. They are insufficiency letters and Supreme Court opinions. In each cycle, sponsors turned in tens of thousands of voter signatures. The Secretary of State’s facial review—later backed by a majority of the Court—kept the measures off the ballot without a statewide vote.
2020 — three amendments zeroed over “acquired” vs. “passed”
Secretary of State John Thurston rejected petitions for redistricting reform, open primaries, and casino expansion. Sponsors had certified that criminal background checks for paid canvassers had been “timely acquired.” The office said the statute required them to certify that canvassers had “passed” the checks. The Arkansas Supreme Court agreed in Miller v. Thurston (2020) that those paid-canvasser signatures could not be counted “for any purpose.” Source: AP News, July 2020; Miller v. Thurston, 2020 Ark. 267.
2024 — abortion-rights amendment kept off for a training certification
Arkansans for Limited Government turned in more than 102,000 signatures (threshold 90,704). The Secretary of State refused to count paid-canvasser signatures because a paid-canvasser training certification was not submitted in the form and timing the office required. Volunteer signatures were later ordered counted (about 87,675)—still short. The Supreme Court split 4–3. The dissent said the simultaneous-filing demand was “made up out of whole cloth.” Source: Cowles v. Thurston / Arkansans for Limited Government v. Thurston, 2024; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 22, 2024.
2026 — 108,000 signatures counted as zero over a popular name
Protect AR Rights turned in 108,837 signatures on July 3, 2026, for The Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment. Secretary of State Cole Jester’s July 30 letter said none were countable because petition pages used “The Ballot Measure Rights Amendment of 2026” instead of the AG-certified popular name “The Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment.” Sponsors say that is a non-material clerical difference, and that the Secretary of State’s own website had previously posted the shorter name. The office also cited other defects. Signers sued. This page does not predict the court’s result. Source: Arkansas Advocate, July 30, 2026; KATV and Arkansas Times, August 2026.
The courts
From “count it if it substantially complies” to “shall means shall”
Arkansas’s Initiative and Referendum Amendment (Amendment 7) was long read in the people’s favor. In Coleman v. Sherrill (1934) the Supreme Court said the amendment “contemplates a liberal construction and, if substantially complied with, the proposition should be submitted to the vote of the electors.” Reeves v. Smith (1935) upheld petitions on the same idea. For decades, clerical and merely technical errors on petition forms were not supposed to kill a measure: the statute still says forms “are not mandatory” if substantially followed, “disregarding clerical and merely technical errors.”
That is not how the last decade has gone. In Benca v. Martin (2016) the Court wrote that “‘shall’ is mandatory and the clerical error exception and substantial compliance cannot be used as a substitute for compliance with the statute.” Zook v. Martin (2018) repeated it. Miller (2020) and the 2024 abortion-amendment case applied that line to paid-canvasser paperwork. Sponsors still argue Amendment 7’s liberal rule. Majorities of the current Court have applied the newer, stricter line.
After the 2024 ruling that kept the abortion amendment off the ballot, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted: “Proud I helped build the first conservative Supreme Court majority in the history of Arkansas and today that court upheld the rule of law.” In December 2024, announcing two more high-court appointments plus Cole Jester as Secretary of State, she said: “When I came into office nearly two years ago, we had a liberal supreme court. Not anymore. Our supreme court is now solidly conservative.” Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 22, 2024; AP News and the Governor’s office, December 20, 2024.
Connect those facts without guessing a future holding: the Secretary of State’s insufficiency letter is now often the last practical word, because the Court that reviews it was publicly described by the Governor as a majority she helped build. That is why this constitutional office is not a clerkship. It is a gate on the people’s process.
Why this race
The Secretary of State is inside the process of direct democracy
The Attorney General can stall or deny a title. The General Assembly can tighten canvasser statutes. The Court can decide whether a defect is fatal. None of that replaces the Secretary of State’s daily choices: what the petition template looks like, whether a mismatch is flagged on day one or on day thirty, how facial review is applied, whether sponsors get a clear checklist before they print 20,000 pages, and whether the public can see rejected lines with reasons.
A professional Elections Division cannot invent a new constitution. It can refuse to turn a popular-name article (“The” vs. none) or a verb (“acquired” vs. “passed”) into a statewide veto. It can publish sample pages that match the certified text. It can tell a committee the same day if a header is wrong. It can treat Amendment 7’s command—that the people may propose and enact—as the point of the job, not a loophole to close.
Kelly is running for that job. The record above is why the race is not abstract. If the signature desk is used as a second legislature, Arkansans do not get to vote.
Trackers and search
Where to read more (outside this site)
Independent encyclopedias and state search tools change often—bookmark the official pages first.
- Arkansas Attorney General — ballot initiative information
- Attorney General opinion search (ballot title decisions appear in published opinions)
- Arkansas Secretary of State — elections, filings, and verification
- Ballotpedia — Arkansas 2026 ballot measures
This campaign does not maintain a real-time list of every petition in the field. For which measures are actively circulating today, rely on sponsor announcements and the Attorney General’s published certifications for the election you care about.
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