Overnight count gives Democrat lead in state House race
Democrats celebrated Saturday morning after an overnight count of remaining ballots in Pulaski County put Ashley Hudson ahead of her opponent, state Rep. Jim Sorvillo, in the race for a west Little Rock state House of Representatives seat.
Hudson, who trailed Sorvillo by 44 votes in a round of tabulations early last week for the District 32 race, led Sorvillo by 25 votes in figures the Pulaski County Election Commission posted at 3:25 a.m. Saturday.
“West Little Rock, for 10 days we’ve been fighting to make sure every single vote gets counted,” Hudson tweeted Saturday. “We’re tired, but democracy is worth fighting for.”
Republicans, meanwhile, said they were reviewing their options with attorneys after errors were reported in the ballot-counting process.
“It is clear after watching the conduct of the tabulation of ballots that the Pulaski County election has serious flaws,” Sorvillo said in a text message Saturday.
The complete, unofficial results in House District 32 were:
Hudson......................... 8,403
Sorvillo..........................8,378
If the results stand, it would give Arkansas Democrats a single flip of a state legislative seat this cycle, in which the party otherwise lost ground in both the House and Senate.
Republicans secured their three-quarters supermajor-
ity in the House by flipping two Democratic-held districts in southeast Arkansas. The winner of a third traditionally Democratic district in southeast Arkansas is in doubt because of a lawsuit challenging the eligibility of Jimmie Wilson, the Democrat who won in that election. The suit centers on decades-old misdemeanor convictions for illegal use of farm loans.
The remaining ballots released Saturday by the Pulaski County Election Commission also narrowed the lead of Republican Rep. Carlton Wing over his Democratic opponent Matthew Stallings to just 16 votes for the House seat representing portions of North Little Rock and Pulaski County.
The complete, unofficial results in House District 38 were:
Wing..................7,099
Stallings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,083
Democratic county election commissioner Joshua Price tweeted early Saturday that there were “possibly 9” remaining ballots in the county, not enough to change the results in either of the remaining races.
The tabulations released Saturday included the final batch of provisional ballots that were approved by the Pulaski County Election Commission — totaling 1,108 votes — as well several hundred absentee ballots that required additional review by the commission.
The commission — which is made up of two Republicans and a Democrat — began its meeting about 5 p.m. Friday, with the intention of counting all of the county’s remaining ballots and providing candidates several days to request a recount before the election must be certified on Wednesday.
The meeting also followed several days of lengthy — and at times acrimonious — discussions between the GOP-controlled commission and the county’s election workers, led by Director of Elections Bryan Poe. Last year, the authority to hire and fire the commission’s staff was moved to County Judge Barry Hyde, a Democrat, after complaints of an abusive work environment.
On Friday, Poe sent the commission a letter stating that 327 disqualified absentee ballots had been mistakenly tabulated after they were placed in a box with the wrong label. Because the ballots had been intermingled with approved ballots, Poe said it was impossible to find the ballots that had been wrongly counted and remove them.
“As Director of Elections, I take full responsibility, and offer my sincerest apologies to the Commission and the citizens of Pulaski County,” Poe wrote in the letter. “Moving forward, we will re-examine our processes for tabulating provisional absentee ballots and revise them as appropriate to prevent a recurrence of this issue.”
Poe told the commission Friday that election workers had determined that 32 of the The meeting also followed several days of lengthy — and at times acrimonious — discussions between the GOP-controlled commission and the county’s election workers, led by Director of Elections Bryan Poe. erroneously counted ballots were cast in the race between Sorvillo and Hudson, while 37 had been cast in the race between Wing and Stallings. That’s more than the margin of difference in both races.
The commission voted unanimously Friday night to bring in Jamie Clemmer, a Republican election commissioner from Saline County, as an “expert consultant” in the tabulation process, over Poe’s objections.
Republican county election commissioner Kristi Stahr called Poe’s objections “odd,” adding, “I don’t know why there would be any objections to having someone with outside experience come in and help us.”
Poe could not be reached for comment Saturday.
As the night wore on, Stahr said a “box of ballots” was found by the commissioners as they were preparing to leave, delaying the results further as the commissioners sorted through the box, checking to see if there were any qualified ballots that remained uncounted.
“I applaud the efforts of all three Pulaski County election commissioners who went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure every legal vote was located and counted,” Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb said Saturday. “Our lawyers are reviewing their options with Rep. Sorvillo and we will announce those when a decision is made.”
Hudson said she expected Sorvillo to request a recount, given the narrow margin, saying it would be “totally fair to do so.”
Sorvillo did not respond to a message Saturday asking if he would do so.
Stallings, the Democrat who trailed by similarly narrow margins in the House District 38 race, said he would take the rest of the weekend to consider whether to ask for a recount.
He also expressed frustration with errors made in the tabulation process.
“I understand that everyone’s trying to do their best, but it seemed overwhelming with the amount of time they had,” Stallings said.
Wing said Saturday that he was “grateful for the support of the voters” and complimented the Election Commission, which he said “worked very, very hard to find legal votes.”
Michael John Gray, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, said Saturday that both Democratic candidates had worked hard and that the results in both races would likely remain the same when the results are certified.
Republicans face a conundrum if they wish to challenge the results of Hudson’s apparent win based on the mistakenly counted ballots, Gray said, because Stallings and the Democratic Party could make the same argument in House District 38, where Wing currently leads.
“You can’t look at one without looking at the other,” Gray said, adding that attacks on the Election Commission staff are a “distraction.”
Webb declined to say whether the Republican Party feared placing the results of both races in jeopardy if it challenges the results in District 32.