A special master appointed by the Arkansas Supreme Court to review petitions submitted by the Safe Surgery Arkansas committee that proposed a referendum on a 2019 state law that allows optometrists to conduct a broader range of eye surgeries found Monday the committee failed to submit enough valid signatures of registered voters to qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot.
Special Master Mark Hewett said the secretary of state’s office erroneously included 51,911 signatures in its verified and final count.
Thus, after deducting the 51,911 invalid signatures from the secretary of state’s report of 64,027 valid signatures the remaining 12,116 signatures don't satisfy the 54,391 signature requirement, Hewett said.
He said that 51,911 of the signatures were procured by paid canvassers not certified as having passed a criminal record search upon submission of the paid canvasser list from June 13 of 2019 and afterward.
This violation triggers the “do not count” requirement of Arkansas Code Annotated 7-601 (b) (5), Hewett said.
Hewett was appointed by the Supreme Court to review the petitions after the Arkansans for Healthy Eyes committee that backs the 2019 eye surgery law filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court in late February in its latest attempt to stop the referendum on the eye surgery law.
Vicki Farmer, chairwoman for Arkansans for Healthy Eyes, said “we are pleased with the final report.
“Of course, we will await the Court’s final say in the matter,” she said.
But Laurie Barber, chairwoman of the Safe Surgery Arkansas committee, said “while we appreciate the special master’s hard work in this matter, we don’t believe a dispute over one word is a sufficient legal basis to silence the voices of tens of thousands of Arkansans who deserve the right to vote on this important health care policy in November.
“We are confident that the Supreme Court will allow the signatures to remain and will protect Arkansas’ constitutional right to a referendum,” she said.
CORRECTION: Mark Hewett's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.