Jefferson County’s June 12 Democratic Party preferential primary runoff elections won’t be certified until Friday, the Election Commission decided unanimously Tuesday afternoon.
The panel was slated to approve the tabulations at its meeting, but delayed the matter upon the requests of two defeated candidates who have questioned the integrity of the election process.
The commission is charged with certifying the elections within 10 days, and with Friday as its deadline, the panel has scheduled a 3 p.m. meeting at its 123 Main Street headquarters.
Dorothy Hall of Sheridan, a retired University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service administrator, asked for the delay while addressing the commission during its Tuesday gathering, saying she is looking into voting discrepancies here. She also requested the certification’s extension in a letter, as did Pine Bluff Assistant Chief of Police Ivan Whitfield. Hall and Whitfield lost to County Judge Mike Holcomb and former Pine Bluff Mayor Dutch King by 180 and 154 votes, respectively, in the state House of Representatives District 10 and County Judge races.
County Clerk Patricia Royal Johnson said Friday that approximately 68 persons who cast Republican ballots in the May 22 primaries unlawfully voted in the runoffs, which included only Democratic candidates. Whitfield asked for Johnson’s check. The development prompted Election Coordinator Will Fox to acknowledge that some poll workers apparently didn’t do their jobs properly in allowing the crossover votes. Whitfield requested in a Friday letter that Johnson’s office canvass all votes in the runoffs, which had reportedly already been done.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Hall said District 10 runoff totals are suspect not only because of the crossover discovery, but also because figures indicate that the runoff votes represented 112 percent of the total cast in the May 22 elections.
“Many people have questioned these numbers,” said Hall, adding she has discovered that at least one Jefferson County resident was allowed to vote in the primary elections despite having registered after an April 21 deadline.
District 10 includes portions of Jefferson, Cleveland, Drew, Grant and Lincoln counties. Hall said she has acquired election reviews from all but Lincoln County.
Hall said that the Secretary of State’s office reports that 1,446 votes were cast in the District 10 runoff in Jefferson County. On Tuesday, she requested a party-identification list of those voters from Johnson’s office, based on preferential histories. When scanned, records were not available for 503, more than a third of the total number of voters.
Hall said she’s not currently looking at legally contesting the outcome of her race, but wants “to restore accountability and confidence in the system” throughout the district. She did not place any blame in the local situation on Johnson directly, but said, “people (in the voting process) need to take their jobs more seriously.” She said such problems throughout the district also could be attributed to “inattention to detail.”
Commission Chairman Trey Ashcraft told Hall that the names of those who unlawfully marked the runoff ballots will be turned over to Prosecuting Attorney S. Kyle Hunter, who will decide if they’ll face criminal charges. As for the poll workers who authorized the crossover votes, “we’ll fire them,” Ashcraft said.
“We’ve trained them and they messed it up,” he said.
Ashcraft said the commission wants the same “pure process” that Hall is seeking.
“I want you to leave here feeling everything was on the up-and-up,” he told her.
Sixteen of the crossover incidents supposedly occurred in one polling place.
“We’ll gather information to determine if there was a conspiracy at a specific polling place, but I don’t think there was,” said Commission Secretary Stu Soffer, who believes the crossovers may be primarily attributed to lax poll officials. “But if we find it was orchestrated, we will pursue action. I think the voters of both parties here know us well enough to know that we’ll get to the bottom of this.”