A bill that would ban absentee ballot drop boxes in Arkansas gained approval from a Senate committee Thursday.
Members of the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs committee passed Senate Bill 258 sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees, R-Siloam Springs, with only one lawmaker, Sen. Clarke Tucker, voting against it.
Tucker, a Democrat from Little Rock, said he didn’t understand the argument that ballot drop boxes create a higher potential for voter fraud.
“Where you drop mail at the post office, that’s not manned. You can stuff as many items into a drop box at a post office as you want, they can be mailed to the circuit clerk,” Tucker said. “So how does the risk for fraud exist in a drop box that does not exist with sending items through the mail?”
Dees responded that the goal of the bill is to make it harder for bad actors to submit fraudulent absentee ballots.
“Each drop box across the country acts as a beacon of mistrust for voters. I do believe it increases the potential for fraud… there’s the potential for someone to do the same things that we’re talking about with drop boxes through the mail, but by allowing drop boxes, it only intensifies the opportunity,” Dees said.
Upon further questioning of Dees and Leslie Bellamy, director of elections for the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office, Tucker said he still wasn’t satisfied that banning drop boxes would help cut down on voter fraud.
“Perhaps there would be an increased risk for harming legitimate ballots, but the answer to that is to make sure that the drop boxes are secure,” Tucker said. “We have three cases of voter fraud in Arkansas in this century, so we’re just passing laws that we don’t need and there could be a need for a drop box in the future that’s secured.”
Currently no counties in Arkansas have used unmanned ballot drop boxes for elections. Absentee voters are required to mail in their ballots or deliver it personally or by a designated bearer to their county clerk’s office.
The bill passed the committee on a voice vote and now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
