The Jefferson County Board of Election Commissioners, meeting Friday at Pine Bluff National Bank’s Watson Chapel Branch, unanimously approved correction procedures on 1st District Congressional voting in Precincts 9 and 10 as recommended by coordinator Will Fox III. The precincts contain 73 registered voters.
“Jefferson County is one of the counties in Arkansas that is split between two Congressional districts and the two areas are not contiguous within the county,” Fox said.
According to Fox, after he learned of a possible “coding error” on ballots in the precinct, he obtained assistance from the coding company and the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office.
It was ascertained that the county had the correct ballot styles for voters. Copies of appropriate ballot styles for the Republican Party were copied and hand-numbered for both early voting and election day (May 22).
Special ballot boxes are assigned to both early voting and election day for each party primary, and it was decided that any paper ballots cast during the election will be canvassed and hand-counted by commissioners on election day. An agency hired by the secretary of state’s office will create the necessary database to hold the election night results for those precincts and be able to properly assign those votes.