Arkansas Wins in 2020, the committee promoting a proposed constitutional amendment to allow 16 more casinos in Arkansas, recently ended its efforts to place the issue on the November 3 ballot. The group had challenged Secretary of State John Thurston’s rejection of the ballot issue, but now asked the state Supreme Court to dismiss its challenge. Arkansas Wins in 2020 spokesman Taylor Riddle said, “Arkansas Wins in 2020 has filed a motion for a voluntary nonsuit and will not be taking further legal action. It is unfortunate that the secretary of state’s office was unwilling to defend the will of the nearly 100,000 Arkansas voters who signed our petition and we believe our argument before the Supreme Court was valid.”
A week earlier, the state Supreme Court appointed retired Circuit Judge Kathleen Bell to review the group’s challenge to the secretary of state’s ruling disallowing the issue on the ballot. Bell’s report would have been required by August 17.
Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court also directed Thurston to continue reviewing the petitions submitted by Arkansas Wins in 2020 and to begin verifying the signatures of registered voters on the petitions. The 30-day “cure period,” the justices wrote, “is provisional, and counting the signatures collected during the cure period depends on whether the petitioner is ultimately determined to be entitled to a cure period.” The court granted provisional certification of the initiative to be included on the ballot “pending a review of the merits of the certification by the court.”
The high court also allowed the Protect Arkansas Communities committee, financed by the state’s three existing casino operators, to intervene in the case.
On July 6, Arkansas Wins attorney Todd Wooten signed an affidavit with the secretary of state’s office certifying the committee turned in 97,039 signatures; 89,151 valid signatures are required for a proposed amendment to qualify for the ballot. However, on July 14, Thurston ruled, Arkansas Wins did not comply with a state law requiring certified background checks of canvassers, the petitions those canvassers circulated did not meet state law and the signatures on them couldn’t be counted. “Thus, the petition is insufficient to qualify for the November 3, 2020 general election ballot,” Thurston wrote.
On July 23, Thurston notified the committee that after completing the “intake analysis procedure,” only 58,675 signatures were on the “face of the petition,” not enough to “trigger further analysis.” The Arkansas Wins in 2020 committee said the secretary of state’s insufficiency determinations were wrong.
Also, the state Board of Election Commissioners recently voted 5-1 not to certify the proposed casino amendment’s ballot title. Arkansas Wins said authorizing the Board of Election Commissioners to reject a ballot title is an unconstitutional delegation of the authority of the secretary of state. The group asked the Supreme Court to determine if the proposal’s ballot title and popular name were sufficient. “The Court should declare Arkansas Code Annotated 7-9-111 (i) unconstitutional and order the secretary to certify the popular name and ballot title of the Additional Casinos Petition for inclusion on the November 2020 ballot,” the committee said.
