LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An election error that could have affected races earlier this month caused Pulaski County Election Commission officials to take a closer look into what exactly happened.
According to Pulaski County Clerk Terri Hollingsworth, the incident occurred two weeks prior to the general election as officials discovered a "street file change regarding a North Little Rock council race."
"October 23, we received a phone call that a voter felt like they didn't get a chance to vote for the candidate that they wanted to vote for," Hollingsworth said. "The change happened about 6:30 p.m. during early voting and the polls were closed after 6 p.m. [Once] we found out, the next day we investigated and then we had to make sure that the street file was changed back."
In a statement released five days later, Hollingsworth said an employee in the voter registration department was responsible for the change — adding that as many as 132 voters may have been impacted.
After the investigation was conducted, officials were able to determine the change affected a handful of people.
"What we know in terms of when we did the investigation and from the time we found out when it was changed until the time it was changed back ... we know that only four voters voted in that particular area," Hollingsworth said.
The four incorrect ballots could not be retrieved, but the clerk said they resolved the issue and dealt with the worker who made the error. Hollingsworth said the employee no longer works at the county clerk's office.
"We took the person who we believed, made the street change, and we pulled them off of voter duties and continued to investigate to see all the things that were happening with that particular incident," Hollingsworth said.
Almost a month after the call, the Pulaski County Election Commission is looking into the issue and looking for solutions.
On Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Pulaski County Election Coordinator filed an official complaint — stating that "these voters were given a ballot with races that they should not have voted on and in turn did not get to vote on races that they should have voted on."
The complaint is asking the Secretary of State's Office to provide what it calls a "supervisorial clearance or authorization" of the election systems before employees can get to specific features.
Now, Hollingsworth is doing what she can to make sure this doesn't happen in the future.
"I certainly want to assure voters that this election is free and fair and that we are fully committed to protecting the integrity of the election process and ensuring that the voters are able to make sure that they vote freely and fairly, and that they are voting in their district that they're supposed to vote in," she said.