Arizona voters will decide in November whether to establish a right to abortion in the state constitution, a measure that could strongly influence turnout in a battleground state that will help determine the presidential election as well as control of the Senate.

577,971 Signatures Certified for Constitutional Amendment

The Arizona Secretary of State’s office said it had certified 577,971 signatures collected by abortion rights groups, 50% more than required to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. It is the largest number of certified signatures for any ballot measure in state history.

A similar question will appear on the ballot in Missouri, after the Secretary of State there said Tuesday that abortion rights groups had collected 254,871 valid signatures, enough to place the measure on the ballot. Missouri, the first state to enact an abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, could become the first state where a citizen-sponsored measure overturns a near-total ban.

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Abortion rights groups have prevailed in all seven states where the question of how to regulate abortion has been put directly to voters in the two years since the demise of Roe, the 1973 decision that said the U.S. Constitution protected a right to abortion.

The abortion rights groups’ run of successes has put Republicans and anti-abortion groups on the defensive. They have mounted “decline to sign” campaigns, filed lawsuits trying to prevent signatures from being certified and sponsored legislation making it harder for ballot measures to pass. Before the high court overturned Roe, almost every abortion-related ballot measure had been sponsored by the anti-abortion side.

Measures to establish or protect abortion rights are already on the November ballot in six other states as well: Florida, South Dakota, Colorado, New York, Maryland and Nevada. But only Arizona and Nevada are seen as presidential battleground states, where Democrats are hoping support for abortion rights will drive higher turnout in their favor. (South Dakota and Missouri are the only two of the states with near-total abortion bans.)

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Democrats Leverage Americans’ Unhappiness on Roe Demise

Democrats have leveraged Americans’ unhappiness over Roe’s demise into gains in elections up and down the ballot over the last two years. The party’s support for reproductive rights has pulled in more young women in particular, a demographic the party hopes will prove influential in November. The Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, has campaigned energetically on the issue.

Arizona is also crucial in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic representative, is facing off against Kari Lake, the Republican nominee, for an open seat. In the House, where Republicans are trying to hold on to a narrow majority, Democrats are hoping the ballot measure, known as Proposition 139, will help them flip two seats in Arizona.

“This is a huge win for Arizona voters who will now get to vote yes on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,” Cheryl Bruce, campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition backing the measure, said in a statement.

Joanna De La Cruz, a spokesperson for It Goes Too Far, a group opposing the amendment, said in a statement that proponents had overstated support for the measure: “This is a far fewer number of signatures than proponents originally touted.”

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The group argues that the law in Arizona, which now allows abortion up until 15 weeks of pregnancy and for medical emergencies after that, “is settled” and that the amendment is “extreme.” Proponents, she said, “fail to tell voters that basic safety precautions now in place to protect girls and women will be unenforceable under the language of the amendment.”

Proposed Amendments in Missouri and Arizona Are Similar

The proposed amendments in Missouri and Arizona are similar to those that voters have approved in other states, including Michigan, another battleground state, and Ohio, which has a more conservative electorate. Each would establish a “fundamental right” to abortion, prohibiting the state from banning or limiting the procedure before viability, or when the fetus has “significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus” — generally around 24 weeks of pregnancy — unless those limits are to protect the life of the patient and do not infringe on the pregnant woman’s “autonomous decision making.”

The states could regulate abortion after viability but would have to continue to allow it in cases in which, in the “good-faith judgment of a treating health care professional,” an abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman.

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As in other states, anti-abortion groups in Arizona and Missouri have tried hard to keep the measures off the ballot by discouraging voters from signing and by challenging signatures and the language that will appear on the ballot describing what the amendments will do.

Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who is Arizona’s secretary of state, noted as he certified the signatures that more legal challenges are inevitable. “It’s going to create a bunch of lawsuits, so that’s got to happen,” he said, just before affixing the seal of the state to the paperwork making the ballot measure official.

In a CBS News poll in May, 65% of likely Arizona voters said they would support a ballot measure establishing a constitutional right to abortion, while 21% said they would not, and 14% said they were unsure.

A St. Louis University poll of likely voters in Missouri in February found that a plurality of voters — 44% — supported the proposed ballot measure there, while 37% opposed, and 19% were unsure.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Kate Zernike/Adriana Zehbrauskas
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