Votes on AR Term Limits Initiative Won't Be Counted

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled today that Thousands of Signatures gathered to Qualify Issue 3 on State Legislative Terms Limits were Not Valid and should not have been Counted. The Measure will still Appear on the November Ballot, but the Court ordered Elections Officials Not to Count any Votes Cast for the Measure.

Issue 3 would have Imposed Term Limits of Six years for Members of the Arkansas House of Representatives and Eight years for Members of the Arkansas Senate. Specifically, the Measure would have Allowed Representatives to be Elected to no more than Three Two-year Terms and Senators to be Elected to No more than Two Four-year Terms. Under the Measure, no Member of the State General Assembly could Serve more than 10 years in Total.

Randy Zook, Head of Opposition Committee Arkansans for Common-Sense Term Limits and Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce President, filed the Lawsuit seeking to have the Measure Removed from the Ballot. Zook alleged that Signatures gathered to Qualify the Measure for the Ballot were Invalid because Signature Gatherers did Not have Proper Background Checks and Paperwork or Proper Signature Sheets showing the Text of Issue 3.

In September, Special Master Mark Hewett said the Proposal did Not, in fact, Collect enough Valid Signatures to Appear on the November Ballot. Hewett found that Secretary of State Mark Martin's Office had Improperly included 14,000 Invalid Signatures collected by Proponents.

The group Arkansas Term Limits Sponsored the Citizen Initiative and spent $475,553 on the Collection of the 84,859 required Signatures, resulting in a Cost per required Signature of $5.60.

Arkansas Issue 1 on Tort Reform, another Measure that has been ruled Invalid, will also be included on the Ballot. The Arkansas Supreme Court Upheld a Lower Court ruling to Confirm that Issue 1 Violated the State's Single-Subject Rule.

In 2016, Three Measures previously Certified for the Ballot in Arkansas were ruled Invalid by the Arkansas Supreme Court in the last half of October and the first week of November, and the Measures remained on the Ballot but Votes were Not Counted.










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