Nevada abortion rights groups submit signatures to advance ballot measure

A proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion in Nevada’s constitution is one step closer to appearing on the November 2024 ballot, after a coalition of reproductive rights advocates on Monday submitted to state officials the required number of signatures.

State officials will now review the signatures and have until July 8 to fully certify the proposed amendment for the ballot.

Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, the group leading the effort, announced it had collected more than 200,000 signatures of registered voters — far more than the 103,000 it needed to move forward with the process of qualifying their proposal on the ballot.

The group said that it also met the requirement that the total surpass a certain amount of signatures in each of the state's four congressional districts.

The group had faced a June 26 deadline to submit the signatures.

"The number of signatures gathered in just over three months shows how deeply Nevadans believe in abortion rights and its importance to this moment in our nation’s history," Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom President Lindsey Harmon said at a Monday press conference.

In Nevada, abortion is already legal up until the 24th week of pregnancy. But fearing that such rights could be undone in in the future, reproductive rights advocates had sought to put on the ballot a constitutional amendment that would enshrine similar language — protecting abortion rights up until fetal viability — to make it close to impossible for lawmakers to ever eliminate the protections.

But even if the measure passes in November, voters would need to approve it again in 2026 before the Nevada constitution is formally amended under state law.

The ballot measure could help boost Democratic turnout in