In the 2018 election, Arkansas voters unfortunately passed a voter ID law with 80% of the vote. This session, Arkansas Republicans have put up another unnecessary barrier to voting by passing a law (HB 1388) requiring certain registered voters to prove that they are United States citizens, which is just a suppression tactic. Republican legislators also introduced a bill to restrict early voting, but that measure failed. 

Arkansas Republican legislators have also pushed to restrict citizen ballot initiatives, largely in response to Arkansas voters raising the minimum wage in 2018. 

Democratic state Representative Charles Blake introduced the “Voter Integrity and Security Act,” (HB 1004) which would establish automatic voter registration at the DMV. Rep. Blake introduced a similar bill in 2017, but Arkansas’s GOP-led Secretary of State office inexplicably found the $42,000 cost to be too expensive. While Rep. Blake was able to bring the cost of the Voter Integrity and Security act to $0, the bill still did not pass. 

Another pro-democracy bill introduced by Democratic legislators (SB 572), that would have allowed voter registration and ballot access to eligible persons incarcerated in county jails, failed.