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Arkansas Judge Strikes Down Four Voter Integrity Laws as Unconstitutional

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


A state judge in Arkansas has struck down a quartet of new laws passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Asa Hutchison they said were intended to protect voter integrity during upcoming and future elections.

In a ruling this week, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen, whose rulings are often reversed, “permanently enjoined the laws—Acts 249, 728, 736, and 973—on March 18 after a four-day trial,” The Epoch Times reported. “The statutes came as part of a nationwide wave of new state-level election laws that followed irregularities during the 2020 presidential election.”

During the trial, Griffen reportedly told the defendants, including John Thurston, Arkansas’ GOP secretary of state, that they had not adequately demonstrated a need for the new laws and that the state’s concerns regarding election integrity were “based entirely on conjecture and speculation,” which “cannot be permitted to supply the place of proof.”

Griffen noted that he planned to issue a more detailed ruling at some later date.

The Epoch Times adds:

The lawsuit was initiated by the League of Women Voters of Arkansas (LWVAR), Arkansas United, and five voters. They claimed the statutes disproportionately harmed voters of color.

LWVAR president Bonnie Miller said on social media that she was pleased with the court decision.

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“We’re celebrating this victory for democracy and are confident that justice will continue to prevail despite the attorney general’s inevitable appeal,” Miller noted.

State Rep. Andrew Collins, a Democrat, also approved of the ruling.

“Each of these laws, passed amidst a flood of misinformation, represents a counterproductive ‘solution’ in search of a problem,” he wrote on Twitter. “Meaningful election security is important, but these laws aren’t necessary to achieve it, and they make it harder for people to vote legitimately.”

The outlet added:

Act 249 dealt with how provisional ballots are counted. Act 728, which came in response to complaints about groups giving food and water to voters, prohibited individuals from being within 100 feet of a polling place unless they are entering or leaving the facility. Act 736, a measure aimed at ballot harvesting, stated that the possession by an individual of more than four absentee ballots “creates a rebuttable presumption of intent to defraud.” Act 973 reduced the timeframe for voters to ask for absentee ballots.

State Sen. Kim Hammer, a Republican who backed the new laws, told CNN last year that they were about “protecting the integrity of the vote.”

“These were taken from real examples that happened here in the state,” he said, adding that lawmakers had worked with local election officials in writing the legislation.

Other state elected officials who supported the legislation expressed their disappointment as well.

“States should be left with the flexibility to protect the integrity of the ballot box and the [Arkansas] Supreme Court will have the opportunity to review the constitutionality of these laws,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, told reporters.

One of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s aids said the AG will review the ruling and then decide where to go from there, though it’s likely that Griffen’s ruling will be appealed.

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“The Attorney General is committed to fighting for the integrity of elections in the state of Arkansas,” spokeswoman Stephanie Sharp noted in a statement.

As for Griffen, he has a checkered past in the state. While he is “known for his left-wing activism,” The Epoch Times reported, some GOP state elected representatives have called for his impeachment.

“Compared by some to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former President Barack Obama’s pastor whose fiery sermons blasted the United States as an inherently racist country, Griffen is also a Baptist preacher known for wearing an African dashiki when delivering sermons, as Wright did,” The Epoch Times reported.

The outlet added: “Griffen was barred from hearing cases that could lead to the death penalty after he attended an anti-capital punishment protest outside the governor’s mansion in 2017 while strapped to a cot as if he were about to be executed by lethal injection.”

“White nationalism and white male supremacy never left this country,” Griffen said, according to Arkansas Money and Politics. It is a “fallacy … that somehow the nation had moved on beyond the hatefulness, the fearfulness, the misogyny.”

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