Inquiry begins after discovery of election gear

Pulaski County election equipment was found at a polling location 2½ months after Election Day, according to county election commissioners.

In response, Pulaski County election officials will tally the inventory of the election materials.

The equipment finding comes after infighting between the election commission staff and the commissioners over several ballots that were allegedly mishandled during the November election.

During Friday’s Pulaski County Election Commission meeting, commissioners discussed investigating how the equipment was left and who had access to the equipment.

Republican Commissioner Kristi Stahr said she was contacted by a poll worker who saw the materials at the The Vines Center on 1 Four-H Way.

Assistant Director of Elections Shawn Camp said an election commission staff member recovered the items finding a DS200 ballot scanner, two ExpressPoll Pollbooks, cleaning supplies, several privacy shields and some “vote here” signs.

The equipment was stored in a locked room at the center and appeared to be properly packed by poll workers in November, according to Camp.

When asked by Stahr if he was sure there were no provisional ballots in the materials, Camp said they have not opened them, but it would be unusual for there to be any ballots there.

“We will be opening that and inspecting that when we have two staff members present, and we will be able to know more information about what’s inside,” Camp said. “There’s no reason to believe there is anything. It would very unusual for provisionals to be stuck in any of those containers that I’m looking at right now.”

When asked by Democrat Commissioner Joshua Price about theories of why the equipment was left, Camp said an investigation was underway.

“We want to look at every part of the process from the poll workers to the facility to the area managers, the delivery pickup crews,” Camp said. “We’ll look at Bart’s inventory procedures.”

Stahr raised some concern that, if the poll worker was able to get into the room, other people may have been around election material.

According to Camp, even if others were able to get into that room, without the election programming, they could do little harm with them.

“These are just big machines that cannot do anything because they have no programming,” Camp said.

This week’s snafu is the latest in the conflict between county election staff and the Pulaski County Election Commission. During the November election, Camp filed a police report claiming the outgoing chair of the commission, Evelyn Gomez, pushed him.

The commission in January voted to decertify Director Bryan Poe and disallow Camp from handling ballots.

The Pulaski County Quorum Court narrowly voted down a resolution Tuesday that would have praised the election staff and condemned the two Republican commissioners.