FAYETTEVILLE — Benton County election workers spent six hours on Thursday at the Washington County Courthouse running thousands of paper ballots through two counting machines.
The officials counted 4,364 paper ballots by machine Thursday but will have to hand-count 500 to 800 more that were rejected by the machines, said Kim Dennison, the Benton County election coordinator. She said that work should be done sometime today.
Dennison said the ballots were taken to the courthouse in Fayetteville because all three counting machines in Benton County malfunctioned on election night and a technician couldn’t fix them on Wednesday. That left totals from the county’s 57 precincts unknown until late Thursday afternoon.
Dennison posted updated numbers late Thursday on the secretary of state’s website, sos.arkansas.gov, showing the count completed for 48 of Benton County’s 57 precincts.
All Benton County votes cast at electronic ballot machines were tabulated Tuesday night, and they accounted for 63 percent of the county’s 116,099 registered voters, according to the secretary of state’s website.
More people than expected used paper ballots in Benton County because election workers, in an attempt to shorten the wait to vote, allowed people in line for electronic voting to use paper ballots instead. That resulted in several precincts running out of paper ballots on Tuesday, and Dennison had more ballots printed that day for those precincts.
About 40,000 people voted early in Benton County, Dennison said. Arkansas has about 1.6 million registered voters. At least 440,000 participated in early voting that began Oct. 22 and ended Monday.
Mark Moore of Pea Ridge, a candidate for the District 95 seat in the state House of Representatives, was unhappy with the long lines at the polling places on Election Day and with the delay in counting the votes.
“I’m not saying it would have made a difference in this race, but it could have made a difference, and someday it will make a difference in somebody’s race,” said Moore, an independent who ran against Republican Sue Scott. Pea Ridge experienced some of the worst election-night problems.
“My wife waited four hours to vote,” Moore said. “I was able to watch the polling place and come in when the lines were shortest. It still took me two hours and 40 minutes to vote. People were still voting here at 10 minutes to midnight.”
With 12 of 13 precincts reporting late Thursday, the unofficial totals in the District 95 race were:
Sue Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,715 Mark Moore . . . . . . . . . .4,222
Vivian Michaels, chairman of the Benton County Democratic Central Committee, said the problems with the ballots highlight a choice the county has to make. She said Benton County should either commit to buying more electronic voting machines or rely more heavily on paper ballots and use the voting machines as a backup system.
“It’s essentially a problem of money,” Michaels said.
Benton County Justice of the Peace Tom Allen said Tuesday’s election may have been a one-time event, with a presidential election, the Benton County wet-dry alcohol issue and statewide ballot initiatives on medical marijuana and a sales-tax increase combining to send an unusually large number of voters to the polls.
“I don’t think we’ll ever have another wet-dry vote,” Allen said. “There were a lot of things on the ballots that brought people out to vote. That being said, voting is a top priority of county government. You’ve got to have an opportunity to vote, and it’s got to be done efficiently.”
On Tuesday, Benton County voted on alcohol sales for the first time since 1947.
With 48 of 57 precincts reporting in Benton County, the unofficial totals on the wet-dry issue are:
For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50,456 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26,523
The liquor-sales effort in Benton County was spearheaded by Steuart and Tom Walton, two grandsons of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. They were behind Keep Dollars in Benton County, a committee that spent $660,688 on the effort and got more than 56,000 signatures from registered voters to put the measure on Tuesday’s ballot. The brothers each gave $299,500 to the committee, according to its Oct. 31 filing with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.
Voters in Madison and Sharp counties also approved alcohol sales on Tuesday, making the majority of Arkansas counties wet for the first time since the 1940s. Before the election, Arkansas had 35 wet counties.
The ballot initiative in each county was for or against the “manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors,” according to Arkansas Code Annotated 3-8-206(a)(1). Besides package liquor stores, the vote in each county will allow restaurants and bars to serve beer and wine without having to get private-club permits. The vote also will allow some grocery and convenience stores to sell beer and smallfarm wines. Permits must be obtained through the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Division to sell beer, wine or liquor.
With 133 private clubs, Benton County has been known as Arkansas’ “wettest dry county.” The measure allows up to 55 liquor stores in the county. That’s one for every 4,000 residents.
Also, on Election Day, Dennison said, about 400 voters received wrong ballots at one precinct before the problem was caught about 11 a.m.
“The ballot that was given out versus the ballot they should have gotten affects the Bentonville aldermen races,” Dennison said.
“The voters should have gotten a city of Bentonville ballot, and they received a county ballot. So they were missing the aldermen races. I’m not sure where we are going with it from here. What is done is done. We can’t retrieve those ballots that have been cast.”
Other updated totals in Benton County included the 0.5 percent sales tax for highways and the medical-marijuana initiative.
On the highway issue, with 48 of 57 precincts reporting, the unofficial vote was:
For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42,808 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32,718
On the medical-marijuana issue, with 48 of 57 Benton County precincts reporting, the unofficial vote was:
For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36,228 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,424
Information for this report was contributed by Tom Sissom of the Benton County Daily Record.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/09/2012