CRITTENDEN COUNTY, Ark. — Voters in Crittenden County are worried about fraud on Election Day. Here’s why.
Voting in that county is a two-step process. You vote on a machine, print your ballot, then watch as a poll worker scans that ballot into another machine that counts the votes.
However, if that machine isn’t working, the ballots are placed into a locked box and scanned later when a few election officials are present but voters typically aren’t.
“There’s too many chances for something to go wrong,” county coroner candidate William Wolfe says.
He’s worried about ballots not being scanned on purpose if and when that happens.
“I would hope not,” he says, “The temptation would be there.”
The process played out during early voting this week when the scanning machine at the courthouse broke down.
“We recalibrated the machine,” Crittenden County Election Commissioner Frank Barton says.
He says ballots were scanned later with plenty of witnesses.
“Two people from the clerk’s office and then whatever poll workers were still left in there and then there was one person from the election commission staff,” Barton says.
The election commission hopes scanning machines won’t malfunction on election day but trusts the process of scanning ballots at a later time. In fact, the election commission says the process would be completely open, meaning any voter or candidate would be able to be there while the ballots were scanned in.
West Memphis mayoral candidate Ramona Taylor is confident in the county’s election officials, whether machines work or not.
“If there’s a question I’m sure they’ll take care of it but I feel alright about it,” she says.
Early voting in that county ends Monday. You can only vote early at the courthouse in Marion. That is if you vote early in person.
