The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that an abortion measure will not appear on the state's ballot in the fall, after it found that organizers did not submit the required paperwork.

In a 4-3 decision on Thursday, the state's high court rejected the effort by Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG) to put abortion on the ballot in November, The Hill reported.

The measure would have allowed abortion through the first 18 weeks of pregnancy, as well as in cases of rape, incest, to protect the health or life of the mother, and if the odds of the fetus' survival were low.

Abortion is banned at any stage of pregnancy in the ruby-red state, with the sole exception being for a medical emergency. The Arkansas proposal would not have enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution, unlike in other state initiatives.

According to The Hill, leading national groups that back similar measures did not support Arkansas' effort because it did not go as far as other states due to an attempt by organizers to appeal to the state's more conservative voters.

In Arkansas, 90,704 signatures are required to place an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot. Organizers announced last month that they had collected more than 101,000 in favor of posing the question to voters through the ballot initiative.

The signatures were disqualified by Republican Secretary of State John Thurston over a problem with the group's paperwork, however. Thurston said AFLG did not file a sworn statement confirming that the paid canvassers had been properly trained on how to gather signatures.

In response, the group filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to throw out the disqualification.

The court found that "the Secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification."

Therefore, the court found that only 87,675 signatures were valid, which caused the measure to fall short.

AFLG slammed the ruling in a statement on X, saying that "[m]ore than 102,000 Arkansas voters exercised their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy by signing the petition to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot.

"The Court's majority ratifies Secretary Thurston's decision to silence those voices," the statement read. "Despite this infuriating result, our fight isn't over. We can't — and won't — rest until Arkansas women have access to safe, standard health care and the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies free from governmental interference.

"This effort has generated a wave of fiercely engaged Arkansas women," it concluded. "We are outraged. We will not back down. And we will remember this in November."

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