LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — You have probably heard it said a million times: "every vote counts."
Thousands of people in Little Rock know that is true because they did not vote in the runoff of a special election for Arkansas House of Representatives District 34 and the two candidates tied, 372 to 372.
On Wednesday night, a re-count attempted to prove every ballot was counted fairly. After several hours of counting, the Pulaski County Election Commission reported that Democrat Joy Springer held a 372-371 lead on her Democratic rival, Ryan Davis.
The results will not be certified and official until Friday at the earliest. Pulaski County mailed five absentee ballots to service members stationed overseas. One was returned Wednesday, but the others have until Friday to be counted.
While the election commission staff counted the ballots again Wednesday evening, the commissioners talked for more than an hour about ballots that were rejected.
During a meeting the night before, the commissioners passed a motion to review 13 provisional ballots that had been disqualified because the signatures on their voter's statement did not match existing records.
Springer brought with her to Wednesday's meeting a woman whose absentee ballot became provisional and was rejected. The woman claimed she was the person who signed her ballot and that her signature would, in fact, match other government records.
County Attorney Adam Fogelman attended the meeting after receiving a request from the commission for an opinion about reviewing the rejected ballots. He told them there was no procedure within the law for them to do so, and that the election commission does not have the authority to create new procedures.
When the commission decided to follow his recommendation, Springer argued the commissioners were bound to follow the motion they previously approved. “I think, in this particular instance, that they should be allowed to look at those ballots and determine whether or not the person who actually said they signed that statement be allowed to do so,” she stated.
"And now, you're saying, because the attorney now—you made a decision to do this without an opinion—so now you're trying to renege on your promise to the public, to this community, to these voters, not to do what you promised to do."
Dianne Curry, a member of the Arkansas Conference of the NAACP, said the inability to review those ballots amounted to voter suppression, and other members of the audience agreed with her.
The woman whose ballot was rejected told the commissioners she understood why they could reconsider it, but that she was disappointed her vote would be ignored. "It's just really frustrating, and I'm sure that the other people who, whose ballots were rejected, feel the exact same way," she told the commissioners. "I think it is an injustice, really. But I'm hoping that something will be done to correct it so that no one else is put in this position."
The three commissioners said the inability to review those ballots frustrated them, too, and said the people who make the rules have a duty to fix them to account for situations such as that one.
“This is the first time for all of us to figure out, this is brand new. You know, we are in a very unique situation right now," said commissioner Joshua Price. "No one expected to have a tie in a special primary runoff. So, we are writing down and taking note of everyone’s concerns, and we are going to do a full postmortem of this election and identify what needs to be addressed. And we can take that list and pass it up the ladder to the State Board of Election Commissioners and to the legislature, so, hopefully they can address some of these issues in the law.”
"Yeah, it's good for the future," one audience member countered, "but we're talking about right now."
If the race remains tied after the deadline for the overseas ballots Friday, the Democratic Party of Arkansas will create a process to pick a winner.