To drink or not to drink?

County officials met Tuesday morning at the Hot Spring County Election Office in Malvern to discuss concerns raised at last weeks’ Rules, Boards and Commissions Committee meeting.

Representatives with the Vote HSC Wet Initiative attended last week’s meeting to report apparent flaws they perceive in the voter registration rolls. Paul Helberg, a volunteer with the Vote HSC Wet group, told the committee members that he and others had identified hundreds of names that appear on the county’s voter registration rolls that they believe should be removed from the list.

The group has been working to collect signatures to get a local option on the Nov. ballot. The move would give voters in Hot Spring County the power to decide whether alcohol manufacture and sales should be allowed within county limits, but Helberg said the group’s efforts are unfairly hampered due to excess names that do not belong in the system.

The Vote HSC Wet group must collect signatures from 38 percent of registered voters to ensure the issue earns a spot on the ballot. The information Helberg presented caused several in attendance to wonder what more, if anything, could be done to clean up the voter rolls and ensure the most accurate list of names is presented.

Committee Chairman Brian Coston made plans at that meeting to follow up with County Clerk Sandy Boyette, HSC Election Coordinator Liz Pfeiffer, and HSC Judge Dennis Thornton to ask Boyette and Pfeiffer for their input about the legal requirements and restrictions on removing names from the voter registration rolls.

Boyette informed Thornton and Coston that she and Pfeiffer spoke to Helberg previously about the situation and had subsequently contacted the Arkansas Secretary of State, as well as the Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners, for clarity on the matter.

“This is Amendment 51, Voter Registration of the Constitution, and that is what we have to go by,” Boyette said as she shared information with the other attendees. “And also, we have the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 that we have to go by, too.”

Boyette said that a registered voter who has not voted in two consecutive federal elections will be placed on an “inactive” list. Officials will then send a notice to the address associated with that name, in an attempt to verify address information.

After a few months, a second round of correspondence will be mailed out to anyone who did not respond to the first request.

“There’s about a three month time period where when the first set of cards are sent out,” Pfeiffer said. “Then about three months later, four months, the next set of cards go out.”

“And they have to respond to us, you know, for us to keep them on there,” Boyette said. “And if they mail that card in, we make them active again.”

Pfeiffer said it takes eight years for the entire process to play out. No one in the Election Office or County Clerk’s Office may remove a name from the voter rolls unless that individual reaches out to personally request a cancellation or address change.

Section 10 of Amendment 51 states that it’s up to the registered voter to cause his/her voter

registration to be transferred after a change in legal residence. The voter must fill out a federal or state voter registration application form and either mail it or bring it in person to the county clerk’s office at 210 Locust St.

Boyette said she recently received a card back from the post office that she had mailed to a registered voter who is personally known to her. The post office returned the correspondence with a note stating “return to sender/ unable to forward”, but Boyette said she sends this person something about once a month and knows he is still living at the address listed.

“I got this card back, and I believe this person is an active voter,” Boyette said. “And I mail this person a packet once a month.”

Coston asker her if they could use the kind of information Jeff Bailey, an associate of Helberg, had received from a paid inquiry through the Postal Service. Bailey procured an official list of individuals who have filled out change of address forms.

Coston posited that if these people had gone so far as to request a change of address through an official agency like the Postal Service, it would seem they have, indeed, moved from the address listed on their voter registration application.

“That might be, but we have to wait on the voter, the voter has to let us know. We can’t go by the Post Office,” Boyette said. “They [ the voters] need to let us know that.”

“I checked with the Secretary of State,” Boyette said. “I asked them, and she said the voter is the only one who can cancel their registration.”

Pfeiffer said she has fielded numerous calls from individuals who have received voter registration cards for people who do not live at said address. One example cited involved a man who had evidently registered to vote at the DMV when registering his vehicle, but the person did not actually reside at the address given.

Pfeiffer reiterated that it does not matter how well they know someone or how credible the information seems, neither her office nor Boyette’s can remove a person from the voter rolls unless that individual personally requests that action.

“I cannot remove that person from the voter registry. I have to make them inactive, and they have to go through the process,” Pfeiffer said.

Pfeiffer said she had a grandmother call to inform her that the woman’s grandson and granddaughter- in- law no longer live at her house, where they had previously registered to vote, but Pfeiffer could do nothing on her end until those individuals make the proper request.

“It’s a crazy process, but only the legislature can change anything,” Boyette said.

Coston asked the women about the claim that there were numerous deceased individuals still listed on the voter registry.

“As far as people that are deceased, we’re supposed to get a list from Vital Records once a month, every 30 days, for us to remove those people,” Boyette said. “They’ll give us a list of the deceased.”

“I’m not saying we get all of them,” Boyette said, and Pfeiffer added that she had not received such a list in the last three months.

“I don’t know what the holdup is,” Boyette said. She said anyone who has an immediate family member who is deceased may request the name to be removed from the voter registry, but a simple phone call will not suffice.

“We have to get a note from those people, signed, dated, that we can scan into that person’s record and make them removable, if we don’t get it from the Vital Records,” Boyette said.

“Our hands are tied on a lot of things,” Boyette said. “We just have certain ways of doing things, unless the legislature wants to change something. And that’s what I told them, you know, if you want to change it, go to your legislature, because I can’t change anything.”

Boyette and Pfeiffer both agreed that the system currently in place, especially regarding issues that arise from registrations through the DMV, is not a perfect system and has been an issue for many years.

Coston asked the women if there was anything that could be done according to what he seemed to refer to in Section 10(d) of Amendment 51, which states, in part, “The county clerk may send out an address confirmation to any voter when they receive unconfirmed information that the voter no longer resides at the address on the voter registration records.”

“Well once they do, when it’s like for changing addresses, they come and fill out another voter registration application, and that’s what we go by,” Boyette said. “They can’t just call us and tell us, they have to fill out another application. We can mail them one if they ask for one.”

“I think it’s ridiculous, and I think our legislators need to be looking at correcting it,” Coston said. “But it’s a statewide thing, it’s not something unique to Hot Spring County.”

“And you’re basically doing what the Secretary of State is telling you to do,” Coston said. He added that it seemed contradictory that they could accept certain information, but not the same data from alternative sources.

Coston said a new procedure that would require persons changing their address with the Postal Service to simultaneously fill out the required paperwork to transfer their voting registration would be a simple fix, but such a measure can only be implemented through the proper legislative channels.

Coston said he will report back to the other committee members on his conversation with Boyette and Pfeiffer at the next Quorum Court meeting, which will take place Tuesday, May 10 at 6 p. m.

Please visit https:// hotspringcounty. org/ for more information about the HSC Quorum Court meetings, and check out the Facebook page @ votehotspringcountywet to learn more about the Vote Hot Spring County Wet initiative.