Voters are going to become very familiar with the three initiatives that could be on the November ballot.
The sponsors of the initiatives have a short timeline to collect the number of necessary signatures, so they’re spending big to get every one of them.
“We’ve had canvassers in the field for about two weeks, now,” Nate Steel said Tuesday afternoon, “and it’s kind of been ramping up, with the number of canvassers over that two-week period.”
Steel is the legal counsel and a spokesperson for Driving Arkansas Forward. Driving Arkansas Forward is behind a proposal to allow Pope and Jefferson Counties to approve new casinos, and to expand gaming options at Oaklawn in Hot Springs and Southland Park in West Memphis. It has approximately 100 paid canvassers throughout the state collecting signatures to put the initiative on the midterm ballot.
“We’re operating at a clip of about 3,000 signatures a day,” Steel added, “the overwhelming majority of which are valid."
David Couch sponsored an initiative to increase the minimum wage. The number would gradually rise to $12 per hour in 2022, with the ability for municipalities to set the limit higher. “We have approximately 20,000 signatures right now,” he said. “We’ve collected those in a week.”
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge allowed the sponsors of those two measures—and another to set shorter term limits for state legislators—to start canvassing on May 23, after a mandate from the Arkansas Supreme Court. That left them just six weeks to collect the required number of signatures, but Couch said it was effectively less time than that.
“Once we got the word from the Supreme Court that we were going to get a ballot title, people started flocking here to get prepared,” he explained. “In Arkansas, you have to go through a criminal background check, you have to go through mandatory training. So, even when you get here as a potential canvasser, it takes you about 24 to 48 hours before you can actually start circulating a petition.”
The backers of all three initiatives hired the same company to manage their canvassers, which Couch said is a common practice. The casino and term limit proposals—which would be constitutional amendments—require 84,859 valid signatures to be certified for the ballot, while the minimum wage proposal would require 67,887. Couch said that allowing canvassers to promote all three saves money and prevents voter fatigue.
“You know, they go to different spots throughout the state,” he said. “That way, you don’t have three people in the same spot. You know that you’ve been in one location for a couple of weeks—or a couple of days—that may get burned out, so you go somewhere else.”
Steel said Driving Arkansas Forward plans to provide daily updates about the locations of the canvassers to make it easier for voters in more rural parts of the state to find the petitions. “They can kind of log on, either social media or the website, and find out where a canvasser is close to them,” he said.
Aside from paying for canvassers, Drive Arkansas Forward just launched a commercial that is already airing on local and cable TV stations. Steel said the canvassing period is an important time to explain to voters what the amendment would do, but that is not the ad’s only purpose. “Also, to encourage people to sign up,” he added. “Because, ultimately, we have to get the signatures to be on the ballot, so that people have a choice in this thing.”
Couch and Steel were both optimistic Tuesday that they would surpass their targets for collected signatures. If they fail to reach the threshold, but come within 75 percent, they will receive an additional 30 days to collect more.
There are two measures that are guaranteed to be on the ballot: Issue One deals with tort reform, and Issue Two is a new voter identification law. Because the state legislature voted to send both of them to the ballot, signatures are not required.