748,191 Arkansas votes already in

Arkansas turnout projected at 68%, 100,000 more ballots than in 2016

Cody Bennett fills out his ballot Saturday at the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock. The number of Arkansans registered to vote this year is more than 1.8 million, the most in the state’s history. More photos at arkansasonline.com/111voting/.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
Cody Bennett fills out his ballot Saturday at the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock. The number of Arkansans registered to vote this year is more than 1.8 million, the most in the state’s history. More photos at arkansasonline.com/111voting/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)

Arkansas election officials predict record-setting turnout in this year’s general election as voters are lured to the polls by a bitter campaign for the presidency, though the state’s politicos say the turnout wave is likely to have only a marginal impact on Republican control of the statehouse.

More than 1.2 million Arkansans are expected to vote in the election, or about 68% of the state’s registered voters, according to projections from Secretary of State John Thurston’s office. Such a turnout would result in nearly 100,000 more ballots being cast than in 2016, when turnout was under 65%.

Leslie Bellamy, the elections director at the secretary of state’s office, said its projections were based on record-setting turnout among early voters, 643,629 of whom cast ballots in person, and another 104,562 who returned absentee ballots as of Friday.

She said as many as 400,000 Arkansans could still vote on Election Day.

“I think with early voting numbers being up, you’ll still see a large turnout on Election Day just because this is probably the most controversial presidential election I’ve been in in 24 years,” Bellamy said.

Beyond the presidential race, those voters will decide a state U.S. Senate election, three congressional races, more than 50 contested legislative races, three statewide ballot measures, and a host of local and judicial races.

With President Donald Trump largely expected to sweep the state, forecasters said Republicans stand to benefit down the ballot in all but a few areas of Arkansas.

“I think the biggest question mark is whether Democrats can capitalize on the environment that is out there,” said Robert Coon, a Little Rock-based consultant for Republican candidates.

Even the shift of a handful of legislative seats to one party or another could have broad policy implications when lawmakers meet in January for the 93rd General Assembly.

Republicans currently control 26 of the 35 seats in the Senate and 74 of the 100 seats in the House. The lower chamber has two seats left vacant by retired lawmakers, one a Republican and the other a Democrat. With a three-fourths control of either chamber, Republicans can pass appropriations bills without any support from Democrats.

Coon called Central Arkansas “ground zero” for down-ballot races, pointing to three GOP-controlled House districts in Pulaski County where he said suburban dissatisfaction with Trump is likely to be a drag on legislative Republicans running for reelection.

“I have not seen that disenchantment trickling down in some other parts of the state,” Coon said.

Democrats running in those three districts have collectively outraised the Republican incumbents — Reps. Jim Sorvillo of Little Rock, Carlton Wing of North Little Rock and Karilyn Brown of Sherwood. The Democrats running in those districts are attorney Ashley Hudson, firefighter Matthew Stallings and Jannie Cotton, the former CEO of a professional counseling service.

Democratic Party of Arkansas Chairman Michael John Gray added one more name to that list: attorney Kayla Applegate, who is running against state Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle.

“With the turnout we’re seeing in Pulaski County … turnout is obviously going to be key, but we’ve got four great candidates,” Gray said.

Gray’s counterpart, Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb, predicted that the GOP will hold onto its seats in Pulaski County while going on an offensive in rural areas that he said will result in the GOP picking up five or six seats.

Webb pointed to the results of the Arkansas Poll released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, which showed Trump and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., each winning their reelection races with at least 65% of the vote.

“It appears that they are going to be beyond our expectations in the vote that turns out,” Webb said.

Four Democratic lawmakers in south Arkansas — Reps. LeAnne Burch of Monticello and Don Glover of Dermott; and Sens. Eddie Cheatham of Crossett and Bruce Maloch of Magnolia — are each targets of Republicans seeking to expand their control of the Legislature, Webb said.

Crossett Banker Howard Beaty is running against Burch; former Rep. Mark McElroy is running against Glover; Ben Gilmore, a former staffer for Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin is running against Cheatham; and McNeil businessman Charles Beckham is running against Maloch.

Beckham’s campaign has been beset by the revelation that as a teenager he was expelled from a Mississippi high school for dressing up in Ku Klux Klan regalia on Halloween. Beckham initially denied the allegations made by several of his former classmates, as reported in the Arkansas Times, but later apologized after court records detailing the incident were uncovered by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Top Republicans have condemned Beckham’s actions, but largely ignored Democratic calls for Beckham to drop out of the race.

“With all the information that’s come out, I can’t believe Doyle even mentioned that race,” Gray said, and repeated his call for the GOP to withdraw its support for Beckham.

Webb said the Republican Party would not withdraw its support for Beckham. “The information that came out is 20 years old and when he was underage … it is not significant as to whether he would serve the district and reflect its views as a state senator.”

Webb called on Democrats to withdraw their support for Jimmie Wilson, a Democratic candidate for a state House seat based in Helena-West Helena, whose eligibility for office has come under question as a result of a decades-old conviction for illegal use of farm loans and selling mortgaged crops.

Gray noted that Wilson had received a pardon for his convictions from former President Bill Clinton, and that the party stood behind him.

“Beckham lied and denied and blamed it on Democrats,” Gray said. “There’s a difference.”

Republicans, including Wilson’s opponent, former superintendent David Tollett, have sued to disqualify Wilson from the election. A judge in Pulaski County agreed last week that Wilson was ineligible, despite his pardon, but left the final decision up to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

If the high court disqualifies Wilson or if he loses the election, it will flip a traditionally Democratic House seat to the Republicans.

ARKANSAS POLL

Janine Parry, a political science professor at UA-Fayetteville and director of the Arkansas Poll, said the era of split-ticket voting in Arkansas — during which the state’s voters typically supported Republican presidential candidates while giving Democrats large majorities in the Legislature — are likely over, leaving few of the state’s legislative districts up for grabs.

“Our transformation is total,” Parry said. “I think at this point there will be the occasional surprise or a predicted liberal outcome in the little blue islands in an otherwise solidly red state.”

The average age of the 804 Arkansans contacted by Parry’s Arkansas Poll was 64, and 32% were college graduates. Parry said the state has fewer of the kinds of voters who have been the most mobilized by the election — younger, college-educated people — than other states where turnout has surged in the early-voting period.

On Friday, Texas became the first state in the country to surpass its entire voter turnout from the 2016 election during early voting, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

According to statistics compiled by the project, Arkansas has reached 66% of the total votes case in 2016, ahead of all of its neighboring states except for Texas and Tennessee.

“This year’s poll suggests that Arkansas may be positioned to be one of the states in which Donald Trump increases his election majority, increases his proportion [of the vote], while he’ll probably see a decreased proportion of the vote in the great majority of states,” Parry said. “The country’s going to be doing one thing, and Arkansas is going to be doing the other. It won’t be the first time we’ve seen that.”

COUNTING VOTES

Bellamy, the elections director at the secretary of state’s office, said the robust proportion of ballots cast during early voting should allow counties to report numbers early on election night, with the results in most races becoming clear sometime before midnight.

“It will depend, honestly, on the turnout for that day too,” Bellamy said. “I think usually with this new equipment by 9:30, 10 o’clock we’re starting to get a good idea.”

Ballots cast in-person during early voting can be tabulated by machine, with the results reported as soon as the polls close at 7:30 p.m., Bellamy said.

Of the 131,558 absentee ballots requested by Arkansans, 108,372 had already been returned to county elections offices as of Friday afternoon, a spokesman for Thurston’s office said.

Election workers began canvassing those absentee ballots on Oct. 19 — going through the packet returned along with the ballot to determine that the voter is eligible and the ballot meets the criteria to be accepted. However Bellamy said the actual ballots will remain in their inner envelopes until 8:30 a.m. on Election Day, when they can be taken out and run through counting machines.

Absentee ballots can be delivered in person to the county clerk’s office until the end of business Monday, while ballots sent through the mail in the U.S. must arrive at the clerk’s office by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.

Military and overseas ballots have a longer deadline, they must be received by the county clerk no later than 10 days after the election, on Nov. 13.

However, those ballots account for a small percentage of the votes cast in the election, with 3,435 having been requested and 1,787 returned as of Friday, according to the secretary of state’s office.

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