Crawford County works to remedy ballot mix-up

Program glitch sent wrong forms to 84 voters

FORT SMITH — The Crawford County Election Commission will work to course-correct after a programming error led to some early voters in the county receiving incorrect ballots last week.

Commission Chairman Bill Coleman said Thursday that 84 voters in the city limits of Cedarville, as well as six voters outside of the city but in that general area, were contacted via letters mailed out Tuesday and will have the opportunity to vote in the races that they missed because of the error.

On Oct. 22, Coleman explained the issue affected seven precinct parts within the county’s Cedarville, Chester and Cove City precincts. A vendor for the commission — Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software — originally sent a list of precinct parts that was alphabetized. The commission then took those precinct parts and assigned to them the ballot they were supposed to get.

“A different person up there called and they were going to send it back down again, and when they sent it that time, it was still alphabetized except … what they did, they used abbreviations on there: CH for Chester, CO for Cove City and CV for Cedarville,” Coleman said that day. “Well, that took Cedarville, instead of being ahead of Chester, it put it after Cove City.”

As a result, Coleman said the assignment for the ballot that the precinct parts involved were supposed to get

vwas incorrect. It was the afternoon of Oct. 21 before any voter noticed that there was a problem, although it did not take very long for the commission to get the issue fixed. The races that were affected include U.S. Congressional Districts 3 and 4, Arkansas House of Representatives District 80 and Crawford County Justice of the Peace District 1.

Coleman said Thursday that the largest number of votes affected by the error were within the city of limits of Cedarville, with 84 voters being unable to weigh in on a deannexation issue there. There were also six voters who did not get an opportunity to vote in the Congressional District 3, House of Representatives District 80 and JP District 1 races.

“What we have done is we created paper ballots, and sent each of those voters a letter inviting them to come back either to our Emergency Operations Center [in Van Buren], which is an early vote location, or on Election Day to the polling site that’s in the city limits of Cedarville, and asking them that, if they are interested in voting in those races, to please come back and do that,” Coleman said.

The election commission will hand count the ballots it will receive through this process and add them to its totals, according to Coleman.

Coleman previously explained that about 28 voters who lived outside of Congressional District 3, House District 80, and JP District 1 received a ballot with those candidates on them because of the error, as well, although the commission did not know whether they voted for the candidates.

All the ballots that had been cast during the early voting period up to the evening of Oct. 21 were sealed in a secure location separate from the rest of the early ballots so that if the commission deems it necessary, such as if a race is really close, it can manually go through them, pull out the ballots that were cast outside of those districts, and subtract them from its election totals.