CONWAY — In a sometimes tense meeting of the Faulkner County Election Commission on Tuesday, the panel agreed to ask state technological employees to meet with commissioners and explain why the county’s voting computer system failed to count more than 700 votes in last week’s primary election.
Faulkner County Clerk Melinda Reynolds and two employees of the Arkansas Department of Information Systems realized the problem after everyone else, including commissioners, had gone home May 22, commission Chairman Frank Shaw said. Somehow, he said, the computer system didn’t read all of the votes correctly.
“We really don’t know why it did that” but hope the state workers can help provide the answers, said Shaw, a Democrat. He said the two state department workers were present for the tabulations on election night.
Despite missing 759 votes, no winners changed.
Still, Chris Carnahan, the only Republican member of the panel, said he was “concerned” and “troubled” that the three commissioners all went home that night thinking everything was OK.
“I find out the next day” from Shaw that about 500 votes were not counted and learn from the local newspaper Sunday that the number was 759, Carnahan said.
Looking at Reynolds, Carnahan said, “Madame Clerk, please notify us if there’s a problem.”
Carnahan said he was “not assessing any ulterior motive” but commissioners “need to know what’s going on” so they can help prevent people from “spinning halftruths and conspiracies.”
He also spoke of the need for transparency. Shaw said later that the panel was trying to be transparent.
Carnahan also told Reynolds that he would like for the employee who helps her with the election to attend future commission meetings.
Reynolds, a Democrat seeking re-election, replied that all five of her deputies help but that if Carnahan wants her office closed, she could have them present.
Carnahan said he thought Reynolds could restructure her staff so that all deputy clerks were not working on the election and therefore she then would not have to close the office.
The panel never voted on Carnahan’s suggestion, and it is unclear whether the deputy clerks would attend future commission meetings along with Reynolds.
Reynolds’ Republican opponent, Mark Vaught, was in the audience and, at the end of the meeting, stood up to say that he had “the utmost respect for Mrs. Reynolds.”
In an interview earlier, Vaught, who now is a Conway alderman, said, “We’re all human. We all make mistakes.”
Vaught said, however, that there had been two previous mistakes in this primary — the omission of the title “Rep.” before a candidate’s name on the ballot and the omission of a constable’s race from the ballot.
Reynolds later said both of those mistakes were hers but noted that the “Rep.” title was added to the ballot before early voting began and that the constable’s race was quickly added after that omission was noticed. In the latter case, she said, affected early voters were contacted and given the option to vote on that race.
“Anybody can make an error,” she said.
Vaught said he did not know enough to say whether he could have prevented the latest problem but said, “Certainly I would have communicated” the problem to the commissioners.
Having worked with computers on his job for years now, Vaught said, he could “work with technology” and help make sure the “numbers are right.”
“My background gives me the knowledge,” he said.
Reynolds said, however, that Vaught’s background wouldn’t have helped on the vote-counting problem because it was caused by the computer system, not by anything she or other county workers or commissioners did.
“I don’t control the software. I don’t control the hardware,” Reynolds said.
Carnahan said he understood that Reynolds had been provided an election coordinator. She said she was given an extra employee but not one designated solely as an election coordinator.
Shaw said the hard work of people who worked on the election has been “overshadowed by negativity” in the news media.
H.G. Foster, a Democrat, is the third commission member.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 05/30/2012