The State Board of Election Commissioners has appointed a certified election monitor to observe the processing of absentee ballots in Jefferson County on Tuesday.
Justin Clay, director of the state board, said in a letter to members of the Jefferson County Board of Election Commissioners that when the absentee ballots arrive at the processing location, the monitor will present credentials authorizing him as being certified by the state board.
The letter asked the county commission to provide appropriate access for the monitor to the absentee clerks “so that he may properly observe, see and hear the processing of absentee ballots.”
Senior Deputy County Clerk Katherine Wooldridge said Monday afternoon that a total of 64 absentee ballots had been applied for between May 5 and Monday afternoon. Twenty of those ballots have been turned back in and 44 are still to be processed.
Stu Soffer of White Hall, who is the minority party member of the county election commission and a member of the state board said in a complaint that was sent to the U.S. attorney and prosecuting attorney that, “There is a very serious absentee ballot register violation.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
According to the complaint, Soffer said the county clerk was required to start using an absentee ballot register to document authorized agents who picked up absentee ballots on the same date as absentee ballots were mailed out and she did not.
He said she was required to use the register to document transactions with designated bearers on May 5 and did not, Soffer said, going on to say that the absentee register was put into use on about May 15.
“There is no telling how many transactions that were required to be documented were not,” Soffer said. “Additionally, there have already been approximately 50 absentee ballots returned by bearers or agents that did not have the name and address of the bearer or agent recorded on the envelope. That will result in these ballots not being counted.”
Soffer has asked for an investigation by the Arkansas State Police or the FBI because this is a federal election with candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on the ballot.