South Dakota officials on Thursday certified a proposed amendment that would enshrine abortion access in the state’s constitution to appear on the November ballot.

South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson, a Republican, said in a statement that her office had validated the petition for the ballot measure, finding that organizers behind the effort had filed more than the required number of signatures for it to qualify.

The measure will appear on the November ballot in the state as “Constitutional Amendment G” and would “establish a right to abortion in the Constitution of South Dakota,” Johnson wrote.

The ballot measure’s placement can still be challenged before June 17.

The development makes South Dakota the fourth state where a proposed constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights will appear on the ballot in November, along with Florida, Maryland, and New York. Organizers in other seven states are attempting to do the same.

While abortion rights supporters have found success with ballot measures in conservative states like Kansas and Kentucky since the fall of Roe, South Dakota presents an even steeper challenge. The ballot measure will need to win a simple majority to pass in a state Donald Trump won by 26 points in 2020.

Organizers for Dakotans For Health, the group behind the proposed amendment, celebrated the achievement.

“Two long years after we began, the South Dakota Secretary of State today certified that the people of South Dakota, not the politicians in Pierre, will be the ones to decide whether to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of South Dakota,” Dakotans For Health Chair Rick Weiland said in a statement. “If there is anyone out there who still wonders whether abortion rights will be on the ballot in South Dakota this Fall, today is your answer.”

The group’s proposal would make abortion legal in all situations in the first trimester of a pregnancy. It would allow “regulation” by the state of abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, but such regulation “must be reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” The amendment would allow “regulation or prohibition” by the state in the third trimester, except in cases when a physician has determined that the care would be necessary to “preserve the life or health” of the woman.

If it passes, the amendment would effectively undo the state’s near-total ban on abortion, which snapped back into effect after Roe v. Wade was struck down in 2022. The law, which abortion advocates say is among the harshest in the U.S., prohibits all abortions except when necessary to save the woman’s life.

Organizers have encountered robust resistance to their efforts, including legal challenges. But the group earlier this month submitted more than 55,000 signatures of registered voters in the state — far more than the 35,000 needed to move forward with getting the proposal on the ballot.

State officials said Friday that 85% of those — or just over 46,000 — were found to be valid, meaning organizers ended up with 11,000 more signatures than had been required.