Court pushes back ballot proposal case
State justices cite violation of rules in complaint filings
The Arkansas Supreme Court has removed from its “expedited docket” a complaint, filed last month by retired U.S. Army Col. Conrad Reynolds of Conway and the nonprofit Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative that he leads, asking the state’s high court to certify the sufficiency of proposed ballot language for two proposed constitutional amendments, according to court records.
One of the proposed constitutional amendments would require elections in Arkansas to be conducted with paper ballots, and the second would impose certain limits on absentee voting. The Restore Election Integrity Arkansas ballot committee has proposed both constitutional amendments, and Reynolds is the committee’s chief operating officer.
The complaint, filed Jan. 9 by Reynolds and the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative, is against Republican Secretary of State John Thurston and the state Board of Election Commissioners. The Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative also has been advocating for Arkansas counties to switch to hand-marked and hand-counted ballots.
Reynolds has made unsuccessful bids for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and for the 2nd Congressional District seat in 2014 and 2022.
The complaint seeks the state Supreme Court’s certification of the proposed popular names and ballot titles for the two proposed amendments. A ballot committee also is required to turn in 90,704 signatures of registered voters in Arkansas, including signatures from 50 counties, to the secretary of state’s office by July 5 to qualify their proposed constitutional amendment for the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
In the complaint, Reynolds and the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative ask for the state Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional a 2023 state law that requires the attorney general to consider certifying proposed ballot language for ballot measures, and a 2023 state law that requires petitions for proposed ballot measures to have signatures of registered voters in at least 50 counties rather
than at least 15 counties.
On Jan. 17, the Arkansas Supreme Court authorized expedited consideration of the complaint and set a briefing schedule under which the petitioners’ initial brief was due by 3 p.m. Feb. 2, the respondents’ brief was due by 3 p.m. Feb. 9, and then the petitioners’ reply brief was due by 3 p.m. Feb. 16.
On Jan. 31, attorney Clint Lancaster, representing the plaintiffs, submitted a motion for the state Supreme Court to expand the word count limitation to 13,500 for the portions of its brief subject to the word count limitations of Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-2(d)(1), saying 8,600 words “will not cut it,” court records show.
On Feb. 1, the state’s high court denied Lancaster’s motion, according to court records. Records show three of the seven justices — Chief Justice Dan Kemp and Justices Shawn Womack and Barbara Webb — would grant the motion, according to court records. Justices Karen Baker, Cody Hiland, Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker are the other four members of the state’s high court.
On Feb. 2, Lancaster submitted a motion for the state Supreme Court to file his belated brief.
He wrote that he believed he was within the 8,600-word limit and timely filed the brief at 2:47 p.m. Feb. 2, but the brief was rejected at 2:57 p.m. for being 76 words over the limit.
“The fact that this is a minor error, which was quickly corrected, and fault admitted by the petitioners’ counsel constitutes good cause to file the belated brief,” Lancaster said in his motion.
On Feb. 5, the court denied Lancaster’s motion to file a belated brief, according to court records. Records show that Webb and Womack would grant the motion.
On Feb. 5, Lancaster subsequently filed a motion for the court to direct or otherwise order that a “corrected brief” submitted before 4 p.m. Feb. 2 — about an hour after the original brief was marked as tendered for the “technical word count violation” — be filed under Arkansas Supreme Court Rule 4-4(g) and, in the alternative, for a 76-word count expansion and an order directing the clerk to file the tendered brief, according to court records.
On Feb. 8, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled the motion to file a substituted brief and alternatively for a 76-word count extension was moot, and the “case removed from expedited docket for inability of petitioner to follow court rules,” court records show.
The court set a briefing schedule under which the petitioners’ brief is due by March 19, the respondents’ brief is due 30 days after the petitioners’ brief is filed, and the petitioners’ reply brief is due 15 days thereafter, according to the court records.
On Feb. 12, Lancaster filed a motion for the state’s high court to strike or at least set aside its order removing the case from its expedited docket or to enter a new order setting a course for expedited consideration, according to court records.
On Feb. 15, the state Supreme Court denied Lancaster’s motion, court records show. The records show Womack would grant the motion.
Lancaster said Thursday in a text message to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that “I like to believe that when the court removed it off the expedited docket, it made an oversight, a technical misstep — it happens.
“I am hopeful that when the judicial elections are over the court will draw its attention to our motion to reconsider because it clearly spells out the law and the appropriate action the court should take,” he wrote.
“What is paradoxical is that I made a technical error and now the court has made a technical error by removing it from the expedited docket,” Lancaster said. “I hope the court and the justices right the ship, because only they can do it.”
The attorney general’s office has filed a motion for the state Supreme Court to dismiss the complaint filed by Reynolds and the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative.
Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said Thursday in a written statement that “Petitioner’s claims are without merit.
“We look forward to continuing to defend the constitutionality of the State’s ballot title process,” he said.
On Jan. 11, Griffin revised and certified proposed ballot language for the Restore Election Integrity Arkansas committee’s second version of a proposed constitutional amendment to impose certain limits on absentee voting, but rejected proposed ballot language for the committee’s second version of a proposed constitutional amendment that would require paper ballots to be used in elections in Arkansas.
In the March 5 nonpartisan judicial election, attorney Jay Martin and Baker, Webb and Wood are vying to succeed Kemp, who is retiring as chief justice. If none of the candidates wins a majority of the votes, the two top vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 5 runoff election, which is held in conjunction with the general election.
Womack is unopposed for Position 5 on the Arkansas Supreme Court.
In the March nonpartisan judicial election, Circuit Judge Carlton Jones of Texarkana and Hudson are running for Position 2 on the Arkansas Supreme Court to serve the rest of the term to which the late Justice Robin Wynne was as elected in 2022. Wynne died in late June.
On July 3, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced her appointment of Hiland — a former U.S. attorney and Republican Party of Arkansas chairman — to the state Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by Wynne’s death until 2025.
Hudson is serving her second term on the court in Position 3. She has said seeking the Position 2 seat would allow her to serve a few more years on the court before reaching mandatory judicial retirement.