A proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion in Arizona’s constitution is one step closer to appearing on the November ballot after organizers submitted far more than the required number of valid signatures to state officials Wednesday.
Arizona for Abortion Access, the group leading the effort, announced it had collected the signatures of more than 823,000 registered voters — more than two times the 384,000 it needed to move forward with the process of qualifying their proposal for the ballot. Organizers said it is the largest number of signatures ever submitted in Arizona for a citizen-led ballot initiative. NBC News is the first outlet to report the news of the group's submission of its signatures.
In an interview ahead of its public announcement, Arizona for Abortion Access spokesperson Chris Love said the number of signatures means that "we're showing the strength of our campaign.
"We've been out in the field since last September with our volunteer and paid signature efforts. And so this number is not only record-breaking, but it's a demonstration of strength that Arizona voters really want to see abortion on the ballot and they want to weigh in, and that's why they signed," Love said. "More importantly, we're telling our opposition that they've got a tough fight ahead of them."
At a news conference later Wednesday morning outside the State Capitol, hundreds of the nearly 7,000 volunteers who'd helped gather the signatures cheered as organizers announced the total they collected. After the event, those volunteers hand-delivered the thousands of petitions to state officials in the Capitol complex.
Organizers said they had collected the necessary number of signatures months ago, with the intention of waiting until the Wednesday deadline to submit the highest number possible. The strategy was designed as a show of strength and a contingency if a large number of the signatures were challenged or thrown out by state officials.
The office of Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, has until Aug. 27 to review the signatures and formally certify the measure for the November ballot.
The proposed constitutional amendment would create a “fundamental right” to have an abortion up until fetal viability. After that point, the measure would bar the state from restricting abortion in situations when the health or the life of the pregnant person is at risk, according to the treating health care professional.
The political debate over the future of abortion rights has been particularly charged in Arizona, a key battleground state, after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022.
In April, the conservative-leaning state Supreme Court ruled to reinstate a near-total ban on abortion from 1864. Following blowback in the state and across the country, some of it from Republicans, Arizona lawmakers passed a bill to repeal the ban in May, which Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed into law.
The repeal effectively restored a 2022 law, signed by the Republican governor at the time, that made abortion legal up until the 15th week of pregnancy, with an exception after that to save the woman’s life but no exceptions for rape or incest.
If voters approve the proposed ballot measure in November, it would effectively undo the 15-week ban.
Putting the abortion issue directly before voters could also help boost Democratic turnout in the presidential election in the state, as well as in critical Senate and House races.
Constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights are set to formally appear on the general election ballots in six states this fall — Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — while Arizona is among five others (along with Arkansas, Missouri, Montana and Nebraska) where organizers continue to work to advance similar ballot measures.
Adam Edelman reported from New York and Alex Tabet from Phoenix.
