Voter ID law removes optional verification

If the voter ID bill that became Act 249 earlier this month had been in effect for last year’s general election, 111 of the more than 44,000 ballots the Garland County Election Commission certified would have been disqualified.

Election Commission Chairman Gene Haley said that’s the number of voters who didn’t show ID at the polling site or return a copy of their ID with their absentee ballot but who signed an affidavit attesting to their identity. Four were in-person voters and 107 voted absentee.

Act 249 removed the optional verification, requiring voters to show ID at the polls or return their absentee ballot with a copy of their ID. They can cast a provisional ballot and have until noon on the Monday

following the election to present ID.

Prior to the passage of the new law, ballots with the optional verification were marked provisional. If that were the only reason they were marked provisional, county election boards had to count them.

The no-excuse absentee voting Gov. Asa Hutchinson instituted through an executive order led to a record number of absentee ballots in last November’s

general election. The

5,262 absentee ballots cast in Garland County were almost four times the amount from

2016. The election commission certified 5,050 absentee ballots and 62 of the 152 provisional ballots cast in-person.

The record number of absentee votes increased county turnout by more than 7% compared to the more than 41,000 ballots cast in the 2016 general election.

The executive order decreed concerns about contracting or transmitting the coronavirus at polling locations were a valid reason to vote absentee in the November election. Without the executive action, absentee voting would be limited to registered voters unavoidably absent from the polls, those with disabilities or illnesses and residents of long-term care facilities.

A subsequent executive order gave county election boards an extra week to process forms absentee voters returned with their ballots. Ballot-only envelopes were set aside for counting on Election Day if the voter statement form returned in the outer envelope was filled out correctly and included a copy of the voter’s ID or a signed optional verification.

House Bill 1112, which be

came the new voter ID law, passed the House last month by a 75-20 vote and the Senate by a 25-9 vote. All seven members of Garland County’s legislative delegation voted for the bill, which required a two-thirds majority in both chambers because it amends the state Constitution.

Haley said he opposes federal mandates required by the For the People Act the U.S. House of Representatives passed earlier this month. The voting rights bill requires states to offer same-day voter registration and automatically register eligible voters who have provided information to state agencies such as the department of motor vehicles or public universities.

It also expands opportunities to vote by mail and makes Election Day a federal holiday. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House with no support from Republicans.

“They’re trying to control what states do,” Haley, who was appointed to the county election board by the county’s Republican Party committee, said. “The problem with that is we don’t want them deciding everything we do. States’ rights allow us to conduct our own elections. Everything the federal government touches cost us more money.”

Haley reiterated his opposition to state Senate Bill 188, which limits restrictions on electioneering at polling places. Whether on public or private property, polling places couldn’t prohibit campaign signs, the distribution of campaign materials or other campaigning beyond 100 feet from a polling place’s entrance.

The election commission said last month that the bill has the potential to remove as many as half of the roughly two-dozen vote centers the county uses on Election Day. The small amount of rent the county pays provides little incentive for property owners, particularly when weighed against the inconvenience of hosting a polling site.

Several owners, citing traffic, litter and property damage, have removed their properties from the county’s list of polling locations in recent elections.

The county doesn’t allow campaigning on the Election Commission Building property, which is usually the busiest early and Election Day voting location. Haley said the bill would limit the county’s enforcement of the prohibition to within 100 feet of the building’s entrance.

Haley said if the Hot Springs Mall continues to allow the county to use it as a polling place, SB 188 would allow candidates to put signs on the marquee facing Central Avenue.

“At the mall, Dillard’s can’t stop them from putting signs on their business,” Haley said last week. “They can go out and put signs all over. The only restriction is you can’t put anything in concrete.”

Haley said he understands the rationale behind the bill. Sen. Alan Clark, R-District 13, of Lonsdale, filed it.

“They were afraid a polling site would let one person put up a sign and not another person,” Haley said. “Evidently that happened in Hot Spring County. It wouldn’t happen here, because I’d just shut down the location.”

The bill passed the Senate last month on a 33-2 vote. Sen. Bill Sample, R-District 14, of Hot Springs, voted against it.