Arkansas Laws Requiring Petition Signers to Show ID and Read Ballot Title on Hold

by Kristin Higgins - November 20, 2025

New election laws requiring Arkansas voters to read ballot titles and show their photo ID before signing ballot measure petitions are on hold after a Nov. 19 federal court opinion saying the laws likely violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Arkansans volunteering to collect voter signatures for potential 2026 ballot issues faced misdemeanor and felony charges if they did not check identification, tell voters that petition fraud was a crime, and witness voters read the petition’s ballot.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks issued a 77-page ruling Wednesday, nearly two months after a day-long court hearing in Fayetteville over the constitutionality of multiple laws passed by Arkansas legislators regulating the citizen initiative process. The laws, including an eighth-grade reading level limit on ballot measure titles, did not apply to constitutional amendments referred by the legislature.

“In the General Assembly’s book, high rates of signature invalidation under the existing, highly regulated petition validation system are only evidence that the system has failed, not that the system has worked,” Brooks wrote in his ruling. “These high rates of invalidation are used to justify more regulation, which will inevitably result in even higher rates of invalidation, justifying even more regulation and steadily chipping away at the right to direct democracy enshrined in the Arkansas Constitution.”

At the beginning of the year, Secretary of State Cole Jester gave the citizen initiative process a "D" grade on his Election Security Assessment Report Card because of invalid signatures, voters not proving their identity, and voters not being aware of what they were signing when putting their signature on a petition. During the 2025 legislative session, sponsors of many of the paused laws said they were pursuing them as a way to reinforce voters' trust in the citizen initiative process. Over the summer, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and policy advocacy organization, hailed Arkansas for passing various election laws. The foundation ranked Arkansas first out of states for election integrity.

Attorney General Tim Griffin, who was dismissed as a defendant in the federal lawsuit, can appeal the judge’s ruling on behalf of the state to the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals. But in the mean time, citizen-led campaigns involved in the lawsuit can go forward without many of the new laws that they’d described as burdensome. 

"I feel good," said David Couch, one of the attorneys representing the League of Women Voters of Arkansas and others in a lawsuit against Jester. The League of Women Voters of Arkansas is part of Save AR Democracy, a ballot question committee seeking a spot on the 2026 statewide ballot for a constitutional amendment clarifying components of Arkansas' citizen initiative process. Arkansans have had the citizen initiative process for more than 100 years and is the only state in the south where citizens can propose referendums, state laws and constitutional amendments.

"I thought it was right and even on the things he did not enter a preliminary injunction on, like residency, and disqualifying offenses, I think that from the comments that he made on his opinion that at the final hearing on the merits we can prove those matters to be unconstitutional as well," Couch said Thursday.

As of today, records show the Attorney General's Office has certified five ballot titles for signature gathering. Sponsors of three of those ballot titles were involved in the federal lawsuit.

Brooks said in his order he plans to make a final ruling in the lawsuit before the November 2026 General Election. On Friday, Nov. 21, he set a Dec. 2 scheduling conference with attorneys. 

Laws On Hold

Brooks issued a preliminary injunction temporarily preventing the state from enforcing several laws against the people involved in the lawsuit. His Nov. 19 ruling specified that the following laws were enjoined against one or all of the lawsuit parties.

All Groups Involved

• Brooks wrote that the Secretary of State's Office could not disclose or facilitate disclosure "to any member of the public any information provided" by the three plaintiffs to satisfy Arkansas Code § 7-9-601, which requires paid canvassers to submit their names and residences to the Secretary of State before collecting voter signatures. He wrote that the law was likely unconstitutional.
  
  

• Act 218 - A 2025 law that requires canvassers to inform voters that “petition fraud is a criminal
  offense,” and makes it a misdemeanor to fail to tell voters before they sign a petition.

• Act 240 - A 2025 law that requires voters to prove their identity by showing their photo ID to canvassers before signing a petition. 
  
  
• Act 274 - A 2025 law that requires canvassers to read the ballot title to voters before collecting
  their signatures, and makes it a misdemeanor for canvassers to knowingly accept signatures
  when they have not read the ballot title.

Save AR Democracy

• Act 241 - A 2025 law that requires canvassers to submit an affidavit alongside the voter signatures they collected certifying they complied with the law. After the canvasser submits the
  affidavit, they may not collect additional signatures until the Secretary of State certifies the
  ballot title for a cure period.
  
  

• Act 453 - This 2025 law requires paid canvassers collecting signatures for statewide ballot measures be "domiciliaries of Arkansas. Domicile requires actual residence in a place plus the intent to make that place one’s fixed and permanent abode."

Protect AR Rights

• Act 602 - This law requires ballot titles for statewide citizen initiatives to score no higher than an 8th grade reading level on the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level Formula test. Although Protect AR Rights had its ballot title certified by the Attorney General, the federal judge recognized the Secretary of State could technically reject voter signatures over questions related to the ballot title's reading level. The Attorney General said the ballot title scored at Grade 9.2 but "I have made a few minor changes to the ballot title that enable it to meet the requirements of Act 602." Brooks' order said the Secretary of State could not enforce Act 602 against Protect AR Rights.

Additional Unconstitutional Laws 

• Brooks said the law prohibiting people with certain criminal offenses from collecting voter signatures is likely unconstitutional. However, Arkansas Code § 7-9-601(d) is not on hold as the lawsuit moves forward to a final resolution. 
  
  
• A law requiring citizen initiative groups to reimburse the state for the cost of publishing ballot titles in a newspaper is likely unconstitutional, Brooks wrote. However, Arkansas Code § 7-9-113(a)(2)(A) is not on the list of enjoined laws. This part of the process doesn't come into play until next fall. "Selection of ballot measures on the basis of ability to pay publication costs
  without providing any alternatives means is likewise not a reasonable and
  nondiscriminatory method of furthering the State’s important regulatory interests," Brooks wrote in the Wednesday ruling.

Laws Not on Hold

• Ballot issue groups will still have to collect voter signatures from 50 counties. Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids challenged the law, which legislators passed in 2023. The Arkansas Constitution says signatures must come from at least 15 counties, which legislators said was a "floor" rather than the limit of how many counties could be required. Brooks said the law, Arkansas Code § 7-9-126(e) did not violate the First Amendment. A separate lawsuit challenge continues in state court. 
  
  
• Brooks wrote that plaintiffs didn't convincingly show that Arkansas Code § 7-9-601(g)(1), a law banning campaigns from paying canvassers based on the number of voter signatures they gathered, was likely unconstitutional.

Lawsuit Details

Name: League of Women Voters of Arkansas, Save AR Democracy, Bonnie Heather Miller and Danielle Quesnell vs. Secretary of State Cole Jester (5:25-cv-05087)

Intervening Plaintiffs: Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids

Date Filed: April 21, 2025

Court: Judge Timothy L. Brooks, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas in Fayetteville

Complaint: Read the initial lawsuit complaint.

Note: The federal court system uses an online record system that is behind a paywall. Some lawsuit documents that have already been "purchased" are publicly available at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69919853/league-of-women-voters-of-arkansas-v-jester/.