Election results certified
The Garland County Election Commission certified the results of the May 22 preferential primaries, annual school election and nonpartisan general election Friday, adding nine provisional ballots that raised the county’s turnout to 12,545 voters.
The total represents 19.43 percent of the 64,558 registered voters the secretary of state’s office said are registered in Garland County.
Voters who didn’t show photo identification but signed sworn statements attesting to their identities cast five of the nine ballots counted Friday. Election Commission Chairman Gene Haley said voters who sign
statements are not required to present identification after the fact.
“If they lose their ID or left it at home, they can sign this statement,” he said. “It becomes a provisional. It doesn’t count on election day, but we will count it if they sign the affirmation showing that’s who they are.”
Two voters who didn’t return absentee ballots but instead voted in person had their ballots counted Friday, as did another voter who was initially deemed to have failed to register prior to the April 23 deadline. She registered April 20.
A provisional ballot cast by a man whose name appeared on a list of ineligible felons was also counted Friday. Haley said the man proved he was never convicted of the crime with which he was charged. He said the confusion stemmed from 2016, when the felon list the secretary of state’s office sent county clerks included people who had been pardoned, had their sentences discharged or never been felons.
The state Constitution allows convicted felons to register to vote if they provide the county clerk with proof they have been discharged from probation or parole, paid all fees, fines, costs or restitution and satisfied all terms of imprisonment.
Six provisional voters had their ballots disqualified for failure to show registration. Haley said they told the commission they registered through the state revenue office, but their names did not appear on county voting rolls.
FOIA request
The Little Rock law firm James Carter & Priebe LLP sent the commission an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request Thursday seeking the number of provisional ballots cast during the May elections, the reason they were marked provisional and the number of absentee ballots set aside for failure to include identification.
The commission counted all 94 absentee ballots that were returned. Haley said all of them included copies of the voter’s identification.
The voter ID law requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot or sign a sworn statement attesting to their identities. A Pulaski County circuit judge declared it unconstitutional, but the state Supreme Court suspended the ruling prior to the election.
The ballot in the Nov. 6 general election will include a legislatively referred initiative requiring voters to present valid photo identification to cast non-provisional ballots in person or absentee.
Runoff
Twenty-four of the county’s
56 precincts are eligible to vote in the June 19 Republican runoff for Hot Springs Township constable between Lake Hamilton Constable Scott Hecke and Jim Kerr.
Early voting will be June
12-15 and June 18 from 8 a.m. to
5 p.m. at the election commission building, 649A Ouachita Ave. The election commission building will be the lone voting location on election day, with polls open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Steve Thacker defeated Robert Burks in the Republican primary for Hecke’s Lake Hamilton Township constable position.
Constables are elected law enforcement officers. Those who have completed the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training’s constable training course can access the state’s crime information database and make arrests in their jurisdictions.