Election delegation backs website host
The Pulaski County Election Commission will retain its contract with the Benton-based Internet service company that hosts the commission’s website after the site was hacked twice in a two-week period Jan. 23 through Feb. 1.
Election Director Bryan Poe said commission officials recently met with Uplink Internet representatives and were satisfied with the company’s plan to mitigate future hacks.
The first hacking happened overnight Jan. 23, when the site was taken down and replaced with gibberish, he said. The second hacking happened overnight Feb. 1, when the Web page was taken down again and replaced with a man in a Guy Fawkes mask, pointing his middle finger up and out and saying expletives.
Neither hacking lasted more than a few hours, Poe said, and each was handled by the commission’s information-technology worker when he arrived at work the next morning.
The commission pays Uplink about $2,000 each year for maintaining the website, Poe said.
Multiple bearers OK for absentee voters
Pulaski County Election Commission members have decided to continue to allow absentee voters to name more than one bearer for their ballots after County Attorney Karla Burnett sent the commission an opinion Wednesday.
In December, election Director Bryan Poe said an absentee voter named one person as a bearer receiving her ballot for her and named another person as a bearer dropping off her completed ballot.
Although the county has been permitting this practice for years, questions were raised in December about whether that was permissible by law.
The commission requested an opinion from Burnett, who responded via email to Poe, saying that as long as the people indicated on the voter statement were doing what the voter statement indicated, the practice was permissible by law.
“I don’t think it’s an issue yet,” Commissioner Phil Wyrick said.
Jegley to run again for prosecutor post
Sixth Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley announced this week that he plans to run again for the position.
Jegley has been prosecuting attorney in the district, which comprises Pulaski and Perry counties, since 1997.
He said in a news release issued this week that he believes his office, which handled more than 5,200 felony cases in circuit court last year, has made the community safer.
Jegley graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and received his bachelor’s degree from Hendrix College.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 02/22/2014