Groups supporting proposed ballot measures to allow statewide alcohol sales and raise Arkansas' minimum wage submitted signatures to the secretary of state's office Monday -- the last day to do so to get on the ballot this year.

Representatives for the two petitions -- called The Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Amendment and An Act To Increase The Arkansas Minimum Wage -- turned in their signatures Monday morning.

David Couch, who led the statewide alcohol sales campaign, dropped off six boxes of petitions at 8:23 a.m. He needs 78,133 valid signatures for the proposed constitutional amendment to get on the ballot; he said he submitted 84,969 for verification.

Couch said he has encountered no organized opposition to the measure, which he said has seen widespread support around the state.

"It was wild. The petitioners would go out in some of the counties, especially the dry counties, and there were occasions where people were lined up to sign the petitions," Couch said.

Couch's proposal would allow for the manufacture, sale, distribution and transportation of alcohol throughout the state.

Thirty-seven counties are considered dry, and many of the counties that allow alcohol sales have dry areas, including certain townships and precincts, according to the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

"I think for a lot of the dry counties, it will be just huge for economic development," Couch said.

Couch said he didn't expect to have the necessary number of valid signatures on the first try and that his signature gatherers would continue to collect them until they heard back from the secretary of state's office.

With the signatures submitted, the secretary of state's office will first make sure the total number of signatures is at or above the required number for constitutional amendments or initiated acts, said Rob Hammons, the director of the office's elections division.

The office and about 30 temporary staff members will then review the signatures to make sure they are valid and meet the minimum requirements for signatures in at least 15 counties, where certain signature thresholds must be met in regard to percentages of voters, Hammons said.

Laura Labay, a spokesman for Secretary of State Mark Martin, said the deadline to certify the petitions for the ballot is Aug. 21, which includes an additional 30-day period to gather more signatures if efforts did not meet the necessary threshold.

Stephen Copley, the chairman of Give Arkansas A Raise Now, said representatives from his group turned in signatures to the secretary of state shortly after 10 a.m. He said his group had been confident they had enough signatures but took the Fourth of July weekend to gather more before turning them in to the office.

"At this point I'm confident we'll meet it on the first try," Copley said.

The minimum-wage measure is a proposed initiated act, which requires 62,507 signatures to get on the ballot. Copley said his group has stopped gathering signatures and is waiting to hear back from the secretary of state's office.

The Legislature last approved a minimum-wage increase in 2006, when it raised the hourly minimum wage to $6.25 from $5.15. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

Companies that generate less than $500,000 in annual revenue and don't engage in interstate commerce can use the lower state minimum wage when paying workers, according to the Arkansas Department of Labor.

Copley's measure would raise the hourly minimum wage to $7.50 by 2015, to $8 in 2016 and then to $8.50 in 2017.

Groups that had tried to change Arkansas' marijuana laws didn't submit signatures by Monday's deadline, saying they hadn't secured enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care, which put forward the ballot initiative called the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Amendment, collected about 52,000 signatures, said campaign director Melissa Fults.

The group, which relied exclusively on volunteer signature gatherers, wants to legalize the use of medical marijuana.

"We gathered a little over 80 percent of the signatures that were required, but we just ran out of time," Fults said. "We had a really big push over the weekend, and we were hoping it would push us over the edge, but it just didn't."

Fults said the group was not discouraged.

"We'll take a week or two off, then we'll work on resubmitting our ballot proposal to the attorney general's office and get moving for 2016," she said.

Fults said people can expect to see volunteers soliciting signatures at fall festivals and at the ballot locations in November.

Robert Reed, an activist who submitted the Arkansas Hemp and Cannabis Amendment, wrote on the group's Facebook page that the group had come up short of the necessary number of signatures.

"I sincerely wish that we had 'made the numbers' but as we all knew it was a uphill battle. We may have lost this round but not the war," Reed wrote.

Reed said in a phone interview Monday evening that he was going to look at his options after spending the past four years trying to legalize marijuana in Arkansas.

"Arkansas is going to have to change or we're still going to be last, and I don't want that," Reed said. "We're losing out on billions of dollars of revenue because this plant is illegal."

Three other constitutional amendments referred by the Legislature will be on the ballot this year.

• One would change state ethics rules, set up a commission to set elected officials' salaries and adjust the state's term limits. Instead of capping service at six years in the House and eight to 10 in the Senate, lawmakers would be limited to a total of 16 years of service, which could be spent in either or both chambers.

• Another would allow the Legislature to pass a law empowering a legislative committee to approve or reject administrative rule changes for state agencies before they go into effect.

• The third would prevent groups from getting a 30-day extension to collect additional signatures for ballot measures if too many of the original signatures are deemed invalid by the secretary of state.

Metro on 07/08/2014