Hundreds voting early in primary elections
More than 2,300 people across Sebastian and Crawford counties had cast their ballots early for the March 5 elections as of Friday afternoon.
Major items on area ballots include the presidential primaries, the 3rd Congressional District Republican primary, some judicial races and a special mayoral election for the city of Dyer.
“It’s unusual to have a city election during the primary, but the Dyer mayor resigned and this was the first opportunity for Dyer to have a special election,” said Crawford County Election Commission Chairman Mike Moxley.
Sebastian County does not have any contested local races, but Crawford County has Republican primary races for the Quorum Court in Districts 4, 5 and 13.
Registered voters may vote early or on Election Day.
Ronald Dyer, a Sebastian County resident, said he always votes early.
“It just saves time, gets it out of the way and I don’t have to deal with the lines on voting day,” Dyer said.
Early voting does not have any additonal requirements. Voters must be a U.S. citizen 18 years or older, live in the county in which they are voting and cannot be a convicted felon. For the special election in Dyer, only residents of the city may vote.
Aside from the date and time periods, early voting does not differ from Election Day voting. Moxley said the data from early voting is kept seperately from Election Day data to ensure the ballot count matches the number of voters per day.
“We keep track of how many people vote each day on the early vote. We want to make sure at the end of early vote that the number of voters matches the number of ballots in the ballot tabulator,” Moxley said.
The Crawford County Clerk’s Office had recorded 813 early voters as of 1:45 p.m. Friday and the Sebastian County Election Commission had recorded 1,511 as of 2 p.m. Friday.
This is the first election following the Sebastian County Quorum Court decision to audit the electronic voting machines after residents voiced concern.
“We will pick at random a few of the county-wide races and hand count it to mke sure the tabulators are doing what they are supposed to do pre-certification. We will be taking the time so that our citizens feel at ease,” said Sebastian County Elections Commissioner Charity Gregory.
Early voting in Sebastian and Crawford counties continues Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and March 4 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Election Day is March 5 and polls will be open 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in both counties.