Democrats and Republicans are typically on the different sides of any issue. This is quite the opposite case for the three Searcy County election commissioners and their thoughts on being decommissioned.
In a recent meeting, the Arkansas elections board decided that the election commissioners of Searcy County had potentially broken a law and decided to decommission the three.
In November, Searcy County commissioners used paper ballots to count the election and was the only county in the state to do so. The commissioners had stated that paper ballots are what the people of Searcy County had wanted. “We held a town hall. We had both the Democratic and Republican commissioners at the time, and a few JPs (justice of the peace),” said L.C. Ratchford, a Democratic election commissioner. “It is what the people wanted.”
The county decided to lease audiovisual equipment from the company Arkansas Voting Integrity Initiative (Avii) to show anyone in the building how they were counting each vote. “Transparency to see the ballots was important,” stated Laura Gross, a Republican commissioner of Searcy County.
During election night, 40 individuals were divided into tables of four people. One person was the enunciator. Another person watched the paper ballot to verify the enunciator read the ballots correctly. Directly across the table were two individuals that tallied the count as the ballots were read. As each of the individuals tallying the ballot reached the fifth vote, they were required to say, “tally” to ensure that there were no discrepancies in the count. Ratchford stated that the counting they did manually came out to be 100% correct when all the ballots were scanned.
Kenneth Weekley, a Republican election commissioner for Searcy County, had stated that the three commissioners from the county were “without a doubt” targeted for using paper ballots.
When asked if the state has any rules against renting certain equipment, Gross has stated the only rule was that the county could not accept donations. “We signed a contract with a company to lease the equipment for $100. It was an open agreement for any county that wanted to use paper ballots,” said Gross. The commissioners felt as if the state elections board had a problem with the dollar amount that was spent.
Ratchford stated, “We are a poor county, we need to save the money where we can.”
Weekley added, “We determined it to be a fair market value.”
The commissioners stated that as they were sitting in Little Rock for the meeting of the Elections Board, they were told they could not make a noise or they would be removed from the meeting.
All three commissioners felt as if the state elections board did not have any evidence of improper actions done. “I spoke with an election monitor and she told me that there were some irregularities, overall it was good,” said Ratchford.
Weekley was upset that the elections board never had a definitive answer on what was wrong with what they did. “The board kept saying, ‘it was always possible they might have broken the law,’ not that we did.” Weekley went on to say that the board seems to think any complaint that is brought to the board is “guilty until proven innocent.”
“We saw it with Drew County,” stated Weekley. The incident that Weekley was referring to was an incident where election workers were issued letters of caution because they had asked a man to remove a politically inclined pin.
The Searcy County commissioners stated that the only thing that they would have changed is how long the counting took. “We were wanting to speed that up for next year,” said Gross.
The commissioners were proud of the work that they did. “We did the best we could,” said Gross.
“I have a clear conscience,” stated Ratchford. Weekley was in agreement with his fellow commissioners.
With the de-certication, the trio will not be allowed to work in any election capacity for the next 14 years. All three commissioners stated they would not contest their decertification. To contest would be an expense out of their own pocket. “The board has already made up their mind. Nothing we say will change it,” stated Weekley.
“I think it is a travesty that we can be removed by a non-elected board without due process,” stated Ratchford.
“They (the state elections board) have a lot of power with no oversight,” commented Gross.
The state election board has a meeting scheduled for July 16 to hear from a poll worker that was decertified in a previous election.
