JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri’s top election chief Tuesday rejected a third proposal to allow voters to weigh in on the state’s tough new abortion law.

Citing a similar argument to one he made when rejecting two previous referendum requests last week, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said the fact that one part of the abortion law is already in effect bars the law from being put before voters in 2020.

The decision came just minutes after an appeal hearing on the two other requests ended without a ruling on whether Ashcroft’s decision should be overruled.

Circuit Judge Daniel Green of Cole County wants opponents of the law to submit a new request for relief after he found technical problems with their argument. The next hearing on the matter is set for Monday.

The action came a day after St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer granted Planned Parenthood of St. Louis a preliminary injunction in a separate case allowing Missouri’s only abortion clinic to remain open for now.

That order was the latest decision in Planned Parenthood’s legal fight to keep Missouri from becoming the first U.S. state without an abortion clinic since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 established a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.