Montana organizers collect enough signatures to advance abortion rights ballot measure

A proposed amendment to enshrine abortion access in Montana’s constitution is one step closer to appearing on the November 2024 ballot, after organizers submitted the required number of valid signatures on Friday.

A committee called Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, led by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana, announced it had collected about 117,000 signatures of registered voters — far more than the approximately 60,300 it needed to move forward with their ballot proposal. The group had faced a Friday deadline.

The group said it had also fulfilled a requirement under state law that the signature total include at least 10% of registered voters in 40 of Montana’s 100 state House districts — a threshold that had been viewed as a particularly difficult hurdle for abortion rights groups in the red state.

At a virtual press conference, ACLU of Montana Executive Director Akilah Deernose said the groups collected more signatures "than any single ballot initiative in Montana state history," including signatures from every Montana county.

The measure, called CI-128, would amend the Montana constitution to clearly provide a right to “make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion.”

It would also “prohibit the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability” — about the 24th week of pregnancy — and “prohibit the government from denying or burdening access to an abortion when a treating healthcare professional determines it is medically indicated to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

State- and county-level officials now have until July 19 to verify the signatures. When they complete that process, the petitions are then sent to the