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Arkansas Marijuana Expungement Initiative (2020)
| Arkansas Marijuana Expungement Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 3, 2020 | |
| Topic Marijuana | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Arkansas Marijuana Expungement Initiative was not on the ballot in Arkansas as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020.
Measure design
This measure would have allowed those convicted of crimes related to marijuana use, possession, cultivation, or distribution to petition a court for relief from the conviction. According to the measure, such relief that may be granted by the courts could include (1) release from incarceration, (2) reduction of a sentence, (3) expungement of a conviction, or (4) restoration of voting rights. The amendment would have established the Cannabis Conviction Relief Court to hear such cases.[1]
Expungement is a legal process where a record is sealed or erased. According to FindLaw, when a record is expunged, a person no longer needs to disclose the arrest or conviction when filling out applications for jobs, education, apartments, or other purposes, and the record will not appear in a background check in most cases.[2]
Text of measure
Popular name
The popular name for this initiative would have been as follows:[1]
| “ | Arkansas Marijuana Expungement Amendment[3] | ” |
Full text
The full text of the measure is available here.
Path to the ballot
The state process
In Arkansas, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot is equal to 10 percent of the votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. Proponents must collect signatures equaling at least half of the designated percentage of gubernatorial votes in at least 50 of the state's counties. Signatures remain valid until the date of the next general election following the certification of ballot language. Signature petitions must be submitted four months prior to the election at which the measure is to appear.
The requirements to get initiated constitutional amendments certified for the 2020 ballot:
- Signatures: 89,151 valid signatures were required.
- Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was July 3, 2020.
If the secretary of state certifies that enough signatures were submitted in a petition, the initiative is put on the ballot. If a petition fails to meet the signature requirement, but the petition has at least 75 percent of the valid signatures needed, petitioners have 30 days to collect additional signatures or demonstrate that rejected signatures are valid.
Details about this initiative
- Melissa Fults, executive director of the Drug Policy Education Group, filed this initiative.[4]
- Sponsors did not publish the initiative in a newspaper of general statewide circulation before the June 3, 2020, deadline. Therefore, the initiative did not qualify for the 2020 ballot.[5][6]
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Arkansas Secretary of State, "Arkansas Marijuana Expungement Amendment," accessed August 15, 2019
- ↑ FindLaw, "Expungement basics," accessed August 15, 2019
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Arkansas Secretary of State, "Initiatives and referenda," accessed July 11, 2019
- ↑ Arkansas Secretary of State, "Arkansas Initiative and Referendum Handbook," accessed June 10, 2020
- ↑ University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, "State Ballot Issues in Arkansas," accessed June 10, 2020
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State of Arkansas Little Rock (capital) |
|---|---|
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