Unneeded reforms

Election changes inspired by faked claims

It was just the other day when election officials from several Northwest Arkansas counties got together to discuss a concern a lot of Arkansans have these days: Making sure state legislators know the potential, even probable, impacts of laws they’re considering down at the state Capitol.

When it comes to legislation at the 2023 General Assembly, it can seem proposed bills are conjured up just because a lawmaker read of some isolated incident elsewhere or just imagines there must be a problem in need of a solution. Most of the time, legislators have put more thought into bills than people give them credit for, but there are the occasional bills that just seem to be plucked from thin air.

The problem with that is that lawmakers are covered up in doing a lot of work in a little bit of time, so bills don’t always get the scrutiny they deserve. Some of the public hearings this session have shed little light on bills before they get passed.

Republicans, who are unequivocally in charge at the Capitol, in many cases used to say a big part of their jobs was to kill bad legislation. We’re not so sure that’s a major factor in lawmakers’ considerations in 2023. And it appears sometimes lawmakers simply don’t do enough work to ascertain whether a bill really will have a good result.

Take Gov. Sarah Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS legislation. Not everything about it is good and not everything about it is bad, though its presentation in “omnibus” form reeks of Washington, D.C., all-or-nothing-style politics. But a 144-page piece of legislation said to create bold and dramatic education reform was filed on Monday and approved by the full Arkansas Senate by Thursday. Does that sound like lawmakers holding the administration accountable? Does that sound like the GOP is more interested in legislative victories than in scrutinizing a bill that, for good or ill, fundamentally changes the nature of public education in Arkansas?

So it’s no wonder local election officials are a bit worried that proposals to change how elections are carried out will become laws without a full exploration of their impact.

“There’s a lot of bills being prepared right now,” Renee Oelschlaeger, chairman of the Washington County Election Commission, told the recent gathering of election officials from Northwest Arkansas. “We need to be aware of how they affect our process.”

And by “our process,” dear citizens, Oelschlaeger means your process.

Senate Bill 250 by Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton is one example. It would allow quorum courts to establish that voters in their counties will rely on paper ballots, not electronic voting machines. The bill allows that paper ballots must be designed to be run through electronic tabulation machines, but that quorum courts can choose hand counting as the method of tabulation. The bill, which would dramatically increase the time and effort necessary to count ballots, at the same time would require all counting to be complete no later than 24 hours after the close of polling places.

Why such a bill? This is the kind of fallout one can expect from folks who believe Donald Trump’s fake claims of election interference and debunked claims of a stolen presidential election. Across the nation, new legislation is being pushed on the basis of election fraud claims never proven and, in most cases, entirely disproved.

Specific to Arkansas, nobody has delivered evidence of election problems — other than the typical hiccups associated with such a big undertaking — or fraud. Election commissions — made up of GOP majorities in every county — have in most every case conducted elections effectively and efficiently. And yet this bill would turn election management upside down simply out of unsupported suspicion and believing a president whose ego insisted his loss could only be explained by stolen votes and rigged elections.

“In Pope County, we do not handcount our ballots nor do we want to,” Election Commissioner Freddie Harris said. “We trust our equipment.” And nobody has shown evidence why such trust is misplaced.

Misguided election bills aren’t reserved for Republicans. Senate Bill 216 by Democrat Clarke Tucker of Little Rock would require voters be able to cast their ballots within one hour of arriving at a polling location on election day. If passed, after a complaint is found to be valid, the state Board of Election Commissioners would have authority to determine a county’s polling sites in the next election. Local control of elections is a strength of Arkansas’ system. It’s virtually impossible for Arkansas elections to be rigged in large part because 75 counties exercise their independence in overseeing elections that still must meet statewide standards. Whether a vote can be cast in 59 minutes or 61 minutes shouldn’t dictate relinquishing local oversight to a more centralized state panel. Certainly, steps should be taken to address long wait times, but is putting that in the hands of a state commission rather than a local panel really going to improve elections?

Republican Sen. Bryan King of Green Forrest suggests elections will be improved by making it mandatory that county clerks open early voting for a full 30 days rather than the current two-week period. His Senate Bill 230 would also require longer voting hours. That would certainly increase the costs of elections, and for what emergent need? It’s already extraordinarily simple and convenient for people ready to cast ballots in the two-week window ending with election day.

The attack on citizen-initiated ballot measures continues in the Legislature as well. Sen. Jim Dotson, Republican of Bentonville, proposes that sponsors of proposed ballot measures must collect sufficient signatures of registered voters from at least 50 counties, up from the current requirement of 15 counties.

Some lawmakers have grown tired of large, organized efforts to implement legislative or constitutional changes through the initiative process and want to clamp down on it. But 50 counties? The very basis of petition-driven initiatives is to empower Arkansas citizens to address things state lawmakers won’t. What citizen or group of citizens can conceive of collecting signatures from 50 counties? Lawmakers are assuming everyone with an idea for the constitutional change or initiated act has some huge organization and unlimited funds at their disposal. If initiated ballot proposals are designed to empower citizens, this idea is designed to quash that power.

These are just a few examples of election-related proposals in the state Legislature. Local officials are doing their jobs by monitoring such proposals and attempting to inject their elections expertise into the discussion. Whether the Arkansas Legislature will listen is a serious concern.