Vote of confidence

Election audit shows Arkansas vote integrity

It’s no wonder Donald Trump continually declares the fix is in on U.S. elections. Given his businesses’ alleged penchant for skewing numbers to make real estate values seem bigger and better than they were, can anyone be surprised Trump himself would see fraud in any number that doesn’t, or might not, turn out well for him?

As he did in both elections in which he was a candidate, Trump has already declared, without evidence, that the 2024 is on track to be stolen, too.

States have jumped aboard the Fear Express, too, passing legislation based on nothing more than self-serving claims of election fraud. Are there incidents in which fraudulent behaviors are alleged? Absolutely. In the vast majority, the suspicions never turn into evidence and, in most instances, provide the proof necessary to demonstrate nothing fraudulent occurred.

Every election has hiccups that require postelection analysis. Those hiccups are hardly fraud. They’re just problems to work out. Take Arkansas as an example. All 75 counties have election commissions. They’re made up two Republicans and one Democrat, based on which party controls the majority of the executive elected positions in state government. To succeed in any widespread election fraud, someone would have to deceive a huge portion of these independent commissions.

It just doesn’t happen. But that hasn’t stopped Republican-led states from amping up anti-fraud efforts so that it seems like significant fraud is happening. Again, in Arkansas, the new attorney general, Tim Griffin, established an Election Integrity Unit within his office. Who can be against integrity, right? But is its formation based on widespread lack of integrity of Arkansas elections? No, it’s not.

A few days ago, this newspaper reported on a new audit report by the State Board of Election Commissioners that should give voters a high level of comfort that the state’s elections already have integrity.

The commission audited vote tabulation machines used in 15 Arkansas counties for the 2022 elections, up from five evaluated after the 2020 election.

“In all 15 counties which were the subject of the audit, the voting equipment rendered a faithful and accurate count of the ballots which were submitted to the system for counting,” according to the report. “Based on these findings, it is the conclusion of the SBEC that the ExpressVote system accurately tabulated the election results for the 2022 General Election in the State of Arkansas.”

The commission hand-counted the paper ballots that show how each person voted (without identifying the voter). The hand count was compared to the electronic count recorded by poll workers using the electronic tabulator. Out of all 15 counties, the audit involved 44,588 ballots. The audit found a discrepancy in which the hand count showed one more ballot in Crittenden County than the electronic tabulator showed, likely due to a human error in the hand-counting process. The commission audited all the voting batches from that county and found no wider spread problem.

Such a result is an astounding testament to the integrity of local and state elections in Arkansas. Next time someone suggests otherwise, ask them for such compelling proof.