Officials at the secretary of state's office said Thursday that it will cost $30 million to buy up-to-date voter machines and equipment for the state's 75 counties, which are needed before the 2016 elections.
At a hearing before the Joint Performance Review Committee, representatives from several counties and state agencies discussed voting issues from the May primary as well as needed fixes before the November general election.
"We're at the bottom of the food chain. Right now, we're trying to gear up for November, and we know we can't handle it with the equipment we have," said Ginna Watson, the chairman of the Garland County Election Commission.
The challenge will be greater when Arkansans pick presidential nominees two years from now.
"I don't think we have enough equipment to adequately go through ... another primary," she said. "We know the 2016 primary will bury us unless we get something done by then."
In May, broken voting machines led to long lines at Garland County polling places, Watson and other Garland County election commissioners said.
"I'm not here to criticize. I'm not here to try to lay the blame on anyone. I think it's very important for us to get together as a body and try to make the elections process better," said Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs.
Sample won his primary race but said some voters gave up after seeing long lines.
"When you see people who have taken the effort to stand in line to vote, and they don't get to vote for some reason or another, the process has failed. I want to see the process work right," he said. "Those votes from people who stood in line and didn't get to vote, those votes were important to some candidate, whether it's me or my opponent. They were important."
Watson said she's applied for grants to increase the county's voting machines, but the cost is steep. She said a refurbished voting machine can cost $2,300, which doesn't include the cost of supplies such as cartridges and paper. And those secondhand machines will need frequent cleaning and repairs.
Doug Matayo, a chief deputy at the secretary of state's office, said the federal government made election equipment a priority after the closely contested 2000 presidential race.
The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 provided federal funding for states to purchase necessary electronic equipment, such as voting machines, to speed up the process and ensure accuracy on ballots -- partly in response to the hanging-chad issue in Florida during the presidential election that lead to several recounts and Supreme Court battles.
Matayo said states have had to find their own funding to upgrade or replace machines since then.
In Arkansas, every county bought at least one touch-screen voting machine for disabled voters, but not every county uses machines like the ones in Garland County.
Forty-four counties have all touch-screen voting machines; 28 counties use computer-counted paper ballots, nine of which use optical scanners for counting and 19 of which rely on a single ballot counter that is kept at a central location; and three counties kept their older voting machines that are operated by button or touch screen.
Matayo said there aren't a lot of options for state-of-the-art upgrades, because the federal commission in charge of approving those new systems -- the U.S. Election Assistance Commission -- hasn't approved new upgrades for several years.
Sample said he was confused about what Matayo wanted the Legislature to do.
"It wouldn't matter if we provide you with $30 million or not, you can't buy the new technology," Sample said. "This doesn't help us a bit. We're still left buying somebody else's junk for $2,300 a pop. So what should we do?"
The committee also discussed other issues at the ballot box, including the ongoing concern over absentee ballots disqualified under the state's new voter ID law that went into effect in January. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion in Pulaski County Circuit Court earlier this week asking Circuit Judge Tim Fox to impose a preliminary injunction he granted in May until an appeal can be heard by a higher court. They cited 1,064 absentee ballots that weren't counted because the voters failed to provide proper proof of identity.
Fox found in May that the ID requirement was illegal because lawmakers had not met state constitutional requirements to approve it; however, he stayed his ruling to bar enforcement of the law because voting officials statewide would not have had enough time to make the changes to implement his decision before the primaries.
Several legislators raised concerns Thursday, citing examples of ballots that did not meet the ID requirements. Ted Davis, the Jefferson County Election Commission chairman, said his poll workers had to discount 83 absentee ballots in May because of various issues, including the voter not signing the envelope.
Voters who fail to take proper IDs to the polls can cast provisional ballots and later provide identification to the county election commission. But the new law contains no similar provision for absentee voters.
"It seems like the rules for absentee voting under the law are more rigorous than voting in person," he said.
Rep. Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma, questioned the legality of the procedures used to close seven polling places in Sebastian County. She said the votes dropped in the county by 362 below the 2010 election numbers, suggesting the closures contributed to the drop.
She requested that the Sebastian County Election Commission be subpoenaed and asked to appear at another meeting to discuss voter issues.
The committee likely will meet and discuss these issues again before the November election, said Chairman Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock.
Metro on 06/27/2014