Clark County tracks down glitch in absentee voting results

Tuesday’s general election results in Clark County have been tallied and verified by Karen Wieman, the county’s elections coordinator. At press time Wednesday, absentee results were incorrect due to a complication with the pollworkers’ activation cards. At that time, results showed that 620 absentee ballots had been cast when only half that number should have been counted.

The final results are now available as, indeed, the number of absentee votes had somehow doubled, Wieman said. After clearing and re-entering the absentee votes in addition to calling Election Systems and Software — the Omaha, Neb.,-based company that runs all of the election software in the state — Wieman said that neither she nor ES&S know how the number of absentee ballots could have doubled.

In addition to the problem with the absentee ballots, Wieman said the number of registered voters in the Alpine precinct could not be found. While votes in that precinct counted, the number of registered voters who turned out was not available. This fact would alter exact percentages for the county. “We want to know exactly what percentages we had,” Wieman said.

There were only 365 total absentee ballots as opposed to the initially reported 620. While there were no significant changes in the final results after eliminating the mysterious absentee votes, the final numbers are as follows:

Of the 9,208 total votes cast in the county, Sen. John McCain took 4,608 votes (50.68 percent) to President-elect Barack Obama’s 4,265 (46.91 percent). Other presidential candidates received a total of 219 votes (2.41 percent) in the county.

Early voting results showed that Obama beat McCain 1,998-1,663, while other candidates received a total of 45 votes. When asked if she could tell if there was a Democratic or Republican tilt with early voting, Wieman said there was “a little tilt to the Democratic side, but not much.”

“As a Democrat, I’m glad for the presidential outcome,” Tommy Roebuck, chairman of the Clark County Democratic Party. “I wish Arkansas had been behind Obama. I think it’s going to be good. At this point we know who the next President is.”

As for McCain supporters in the county, state and nation, he said, “We’re going to have to start the healing process because there were some deep feelings involved in this. We’re going to have to start the process of coming back together. We’re all Americans.”

For U.S. Senate, Mark Pryor won in Clark County with 7,266 votes to Rebekah Kennedy’s 1,342. In early voting, Pryor beat Kennedy 2,998-517.

Rep. Mike Ross won U.S. Congressional District 4 in the county, with 7,427 votes to Joshua Drake’s 1,160. Ross beat Drake 3,048-445 during early voting.

Proposed Constitutional Amendment 3 (for establishing a state lottery) won the county, 5,761-3,108. Early voting showed the amendment had 2,408 votes for and 1,202 votes against.
Initiative Act 1 (for making it illegal for unmarried or single people to adopt) had 4,796 votes for and 4,021 votes against. Early voting show the act had 1,880 votes for and 1,691 votes against the initiative.

In Caddo Valley, Erik Edington beat Douglas Higginbotham for District 3 alderman, 128-94. A six-month local sales tax for the purchase of new police cars won 140-109. Mayor Alan Dillavou said he was “very pleased” with the passage of the six-month penny sales tax, which is set to purchase the city all new police cars.

“Even though the tax is only for six months I know the economy is bad for some people,” he said. “But the city’s finance is not such that we could afford to buy any police cars.” He said replacing the city’s police untils will help keep Caddo Valley residents and visitors “much safer.”

Clark County witnessed an “excellent turnout” Tuesday, Wieman said, with 74 percent of the county’s 12,443 registered voters who cast their ballots. Wieman said the turnout could have been “possibly a record.” County Clerk Rhonda Cole, who keeps those records, said it is a record “as long as I’ve been here. It was the biggest turnout I’ve seen.” Cole has been the county clerk since 1999. She said 70 percent of the county’s turned out to vote in the 2004 general election.

While Wieman said Election Day went “pretty good,” the only problems she witnessed included getting one voting machine started because of a faulty activator card (which pollworkers use to activate a ballot machine).

Another problem was with a voter who turned out to vote wearing a campaign shirt. She conformed to pollworkers’ requests to come back after the shirt was turned inside out, but Wieman said she was still unhappy about the law, which prohibits campaign material to be displayed within 100 feet of a polling place.

“After a bit of discussion, it worked out,” Wieman said.

A third problem, Wieman said, was that pollworkers were continuously having to replace the real time audit logs, or the receipts that rolled as votes were cast.

“That was the biggest problem,” she said.