LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — A federal judge has struck down a swathe of new Arkansas laws that restricted the initiative and referendum process that allows citizens to petition to put constitutional amendments on the ballot.
April last year, the League of Women Voters of Arkansas sued the state to block laws that they said dismantled Arkansas’ direct democracy process.
Plaintiffs say the most burdensome of the laws, passed at the last regular session, required that canvassers be Arkansas residents, verify signers’ photo IDs, tell signers that petition fraud is a crime, sign affidavits before counting signatures, and read ballot titles aloud to signers. Western District of Arkansas Judge Timothy Brooks declared those laws unconstitutional and struck them down last Friday…