Arkansas asking SCOTUS to hear voter registration e-signature case

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — The State Board of Election Commissioners is planning to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case regarding its rule prohibiting electronic signatures on Arkansas voter registrations.

When the State Board of Election Commissioners banned electronic signatures on voter registrations in 2024, Get Loud Arkansas, a nonprofit that had been using an online platform to register voters, was quick to sue.

Get Loud said it had initially received the green light from state officials to register voters with e-signatures before the rule change. The group believes the state’s shifting stance to be politically motivated.

“After saying multiple times that this was okay? Why did they change their mind? I can speculate, but that’s a question best answered by them,” Kathy Webb, executive director of Get Loud Arkansas and a Little Rock City Board member, said.

But the SBEC says it implemented its ban on e-signatures because of fraud concerns as well as equality, as most Arkansas counties did not accept e-signatures on voter registrations. The board says the rule change addressed that ambiguity.

“Some county clerks were accepting them, some county clerks were not accepting them. So, you had differences in how registrants were treated depending on which county you were in. So the board took the position to adopt a rule to require the wet signature on a piece of paper,” Chris Madison, director of the State Board of Election Commissioners, told KATV.

But the legal battle has not gone the state’s way. Courts have sided with Get Loud and allowed it to use its online voter registration tool. In May, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals refused the state’s request to hear the case. As a result, the board was left with three options: accept defeat, go to trial in district court, or try to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We’ve had similar cases in two other circuits, in the Fifth Circuit and the 11th Circuit, where those circuits found that the signature requirement was material, meaning it serves a legitimate purpose. The trial court and the 8th Circuit’s two-to-one decision said that the rule that was adopted by the State Board is not material. So, there’s a circuit split. And those are the types of cases that the Supreme Court takes up,” Madison said.

So far, the board has spent $90,000 fighting the lawsuit out of $250,000 allocated by the Legislature. If the Supreme Court takes up the case, more money will likely need to be allocated.

“It’s the Super Bowl. It’s the Supreme Court. I mean, you get the good lawyers that do those types of cases and, you know, there’s a potential for more costs,” Madison said.

“I don’t understand why we want to spend more taxpayer dollars to fight making it easier to help people register to vote,” Webb told KATV.

The deadline for the State Board of Election Commissioners to file its petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case is in August.

Arkansas is one of eight states that does not have online voter registration.