From the Arkansas Advocate:
State election regulators decertified all three members of the Searcy County Election Commission on Wednesday over allegations the commission accepted an equipment donation in violation of state rules.
The decertification means the election commissioners cannot work in any official election capacity for 14 years.
The State Board of Election Commissioners, per its rules, did not identify Searcy County or the election officials by name as it reviewed 10 possible violations of state election law and regulations, but election commissioners from Searcy County attended the meeting and confirmed afterward they were the subject of the board’s actions.
Searcy County was the only county to count ballots by hand last year. The county’s election officials used audio-visual equipment donated by the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative to help observers monitor the vote counting. The nonprofit Voter Integrity Initiative unsuccessfully sued the state last year to get approval of a ballot measure that would require all elections in Arkansas to be conducted by hand-counted paper ballots.
The state election board sanctioned Searcy County last October over issues involved in its hand count during the March 2024 primaries.
Chris Madison, director of the state election board, lauded the county’s efforts to be transparent, but said his staff had difficulty getting records from officials documenting what he described as an equipment purchase.
Only after the staff’s investigative report had been finalized at the beginning of this month did it receive an invoice from the county election commission that showed it had been billed $100 for the equipment, Madison said.
Board member Jamie Clemmer said that receiving donated equipment from Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative seemed questionable, “especially by somebody that has a vested interest in these sorts of elections.”
Madison said his staff didn’t examine the ethics of the donation, only whether it was properly documented and compensated.
Laura Gross, the chair of the Searcy County Election Commission, said in an interview after the meeting that the equipment was a one-day rental, not a purchase, and that the same terms were available to other counties as well. She disputed that there was any kind of “quid pro quo” or under the table dealing for the equipment. She said she didn’t know what the voter integrity group’s history was and that she “was trying to be a good steward of my budget.”
The county election commission also hadn’t been provided with a copy of the complaint against it, Gross said, which she said is a requirement under the board’s rules.
“It’s almost like they’re looking for something wrong,” Gross said, adding later that, “this is an out-of-control commission, and you can quote me on that.”
Gross said she doesn’t plan on contesting her decertification, while the other two commissioners told the Advocate they were undecided. Gross said she served on the county election commission as a public service. The the effort required to keep doing so wasn’t worth it, she said, as she believed the outcome of the state board’s investigation was predetermined based on the way members treated her and poll workers from Drew County on Wednesday.
The board voted to issue letters of caution to two Drew County election workers after it found the women had violated electioneering laws by asking a man to remove a pin with a graphic of former President Joe Biden’s face and the words “Weak Men Create Hard Time” prior to voting.
The man left the polling place upset after “snatching” back his ID in response to the request. He was allowed to vote the following day after the state election commission clarified that wearing the pin was not electioneering since Biden was not on the ballot.
In addition to decertifying the Searcy County election commissioners, the state election board also sanctioned other Searcy County election workers. A poll supervisor was given a letter of caution after a board-trained poll monitor overheard her saying she had “talked voters out of” casting provisional ballots. Another poll worker overheard expressing support for the casino ballot measure was decertified.
Additionally, the board voted to hold a hearing on July 16 for a poll worker who is contesting a previous board decertification vote.
