Montana Certifies Signatures for November Abortion Question

Voters in Montana will decide in November whether to enshrine a right to abortion in the state Constitution, joining eight other states with similar citizen-sponsored questions on their ballots.

Montana’s secretary of state sent an email late Tuesday to the coalition of abortion rights groups sponsoring the measure, certifying that they had collected enough valid signatures to place it on the ballot. The coalition had submitted more than 117,000 signatures, nearly double the 60,039 required and the most submitted for a ballot measure in Montana history.

And in Arizona — which, like Montana, was facing a Thursday deadline to certify its ballots — the state’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal late Tuesday from anti-abortion groups trying to strike a similar measure that the secretary of state there had approved last week. The justices, all appointed by Republicans, said that their decision did not signal support for the measure, only that they did not agree with the technical objection raised by the anti-abortion groups about the language used on ballot petitions.