Confusion over voter-ID requirements remained the top complaint from those who experienced trouble at the polls Tuesday, according the the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
In some cases, poll workers asked voters to show photo identification unnecessarily, the ACLU said.
In others, voters who had transferred their registration from one county to another were flagged by the secretary of state's office. Those flagged were told that they would have to show proof of identification in order to be given a ballot.
"Apparently some poll workers had erroneous information," said Holly Dickson, legal director for the ACLU.
Much of the confusion stemmed from voter-identification legislation that was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court just a few weeks before Election Day.
Act 595, which went into effect at the start of this year, required voters to show valid photo identification at the polls in order to vote. Arkansas was one of 34 states that enacted voter-identification laws, and according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, it had one of the strictest such laws in the nation.
In mid-October, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the constitutional rights of Arkansans.
The justices' decision meant that registered voters weren't required to present photo IDs at the polls on Tuesday.
First-time voters who registered through the mail and have not provided identification -- ranging from copies of driver's licenses to utility bills -- would have to show some identification at the polls, according to the secretary of state's office.
Aaron Sadler, a spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, also sent out a statement reiterating that the voter-identification law is no longer in effect and would not apply during the general election.
"There are now no circumstances which absolutely require a photo ID in order to vote," Sadler stated. "Some first-time voters will need to provide some type of identification, but there are alternatives to providing a photo ID."
In spite of these efforts to get the word out to poll workers, not everyone got the message, Dickson said.
Also Tuesday, Union County voters trying to cast a ballot for write-in candidates experienced some problems, said Greg Harrison, chairman of the Union County Election Commission.
"Our machines are set up so that if you want to elect a write-in candidate, there's a location to write in that person's name in the upper right-hand corner of the machine," Harrison said. "If someone votes for the write-in candidate and doesn't close the black lever that covers the piece of paper all the way back down, it shows to be a power failure. At 8:05 this morning there were calls to Little Rock to the state parties saying that the machines weren't running. They were up and running, but the previous voters didn't close the black lever all the way back down."
Harrison said the problem was "addressed by 8:15 this morning."
In Jefferson County, election coordinator Will Fox said a flash drive in one of the 11 voting machines at the Gospel Temple Baptist Church polling site on the edge of Pine Bluff had malfunctioned, delaying vote tallies from that machine.
Fox said the problem was being corrected, but he didn't know how long the process would take.
"We will not release anything from that polling site until" that problem is resolved, he said.
Roughly 700 people are registered to vote at that site, Fox said.
Those who had difficulties voting can still call the National Voter Hotline at (866) 687-8683.
Information for this article was contributed by Debra Hale-Shelton of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
State Desk on 11/05/2014