BENTONVILLE — Election day activities have some area church officials weary of hosting polling places.
Pastors for Open Door Baptist Church and First Church of the Nazarene, both in Rogers, have told the Benton County Election Commission they are considering their status as polling places.
Pastor Karl Roten of Open Door Baptist said his board will meet next month to decide whether the church will remain a polling place.
“Our main concern is candidate signs in the church yard making it look like we are endorsing the candidates, and we are just not comfortable with that,” Roten said. “This last election we had signs all over the yard, and some of our church members said something about it so it has cometo a head.”
Election Commissioner Bill Williams said he understands.
“Churches have to be careful with politics because if they get too involved they can lose their nonprofit status,” Williams said.
Pastor Michael McCauley of Bella Vista Baptist Church is also considering whether his church will remain a polling site.
McCauley began questioning the church’s ability to remain a polling site after Secure Arkansas asked for petition signatures on church property during the Bentonville School District election in April.
Secure Arkansas is a special-interest group trying to get a state constitutional amendment placed on the ballot in November that would limit the benefits illegal aliens receive.
“There needs to be a clarification on what are the rules and what are not the rules,” McCauley said, noting that some poll workers are not clear on the laws governing electioneering and petitioners. Article 7 of the Arkansas Constitution says that no law shall be passed that prohibits a person from circulating a petition or that interferes with a person’s ability to procure petitions.
Polling places become public property on election day. Anyone can be on the polling place property so long as he does not cause a disruption and is at least 100 feet from the entrance, Williams said.
McCauley said his church likely will remain a polling place unless something more serious happens.
“We are a part of the community, and if we can continue to help the community, we will until that starts to conflict with what we are teaching,” he said.
More churches dropping out as election day polling sites could cause a huge problem for the Election Commission. Of Benton County’s 61 polling sites, 47 are at churches, said County Clerk Tena O’Brien.
Representatives of Rogers Free Will Baptist Church already told the commission it will no longer be a polling site. Pastor Eddie Davis said the church can no longer continue as a polling place because the two members who oversaw the church on election days are unable to do so.
“It was not anything political. It was just a manpower situation,” Davis said.
Jennifer Price, the Washington County election coordinator, said there have been no similar problems in Washington County. The only complaint that the Washington County Election Commission has had since 2008 involved campaigners leaving election signs on church property after election day, Price said.
Williams said he soon will propose a policy to the Benton County Election Commission to limit electioneering and petitioning on church property to what he called a “free speech area.”
“Thankfully, we have not had a mass walkout yet, and, if our friends will just stick with us, we are trying to make it better,” Williams said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 23 on 06/27/2010