VAN BUREN — Any votes cast for Tommy Fite for the District 83 seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives will be manually deleted before results are made public on election night, the Crawford County Election Commission decided Thursday.
The three election commissioners met Thursday morning with commission attorney Chuck Baker and Crawford County Clerk Teresa Armer to decide how to comply with a Pulaski County Circuit Court judge’s ruling that election officials exclude Fite or the counting of his votes from the election ballots.
Circuit Judge Collins Kilgore ruled Wednesday that Fite was ineligible to run for election after his candidacy was challenged in court earlier this month because of Fite’s 1984 misdemeanor conviction for Medicare bribery.
Fite said Thursday that his attorney, Gregg Almand of Little Rock, was preparingan appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court that would be filed Thursday or today.
Fite, a Republican, was running against Democrat Leslee Milam Post of Ozark for the legislative seat that covers parts of Crawford and Franklin counties.
The commissioners and Armer decided that to complywith Kilgore’s ruling, votes for Fite would have to be removed before they are printed out and made public. They also decided that officials would have to instruct poll workers in the 15 precincts where Fite’s name appears on the ballot not to disseminate his votes.
Baker warned during themeeting that his impression from Kilgore’s tone in court Wednesday was that he would not have a problem with holding anyone in contempt of court who disseminated votes cast for Fite.
While the votes are recorded electronically, a tape of the vote totals are printed out when poll workers close out a voting machine after the polls close, Armer said. The tapes will be used during the election certification to verify the electronically recorded vote totals.
Armer said poll workers could see the totals when they are printed out on the tapes.
Armer said there would notbe time before Tuesday’s election to change the ballots to remove Fite’s name. She said the Omaha company that provides the voting software for the countywould need three weeks to change the ballot.
Crawford County residents vote on electronic touch screen voting machines that record votes on cartridges that are inserted into voting machines and record all the votes cast on the machines.
After the polls close, the cartridges will be inserted into the counting machine, commissioners said. For the 15 precincts that include the District 83 race, the votes for Fite will be deleted before the totals are printed out using a laptop computer that can be connected to the counter and gain access to the votes, Armer said.
Kenneth Chitwood, chairman of the election panel, said Thursday that digital flash cards, which also record votes, and the vote tapes would be saved in case Fite’s appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court is not heard until after the election. If the appeal is in Fite’s favor, votes for him would be saved on the flash cards and tapes and could be counted.
Fite, who attended Thursday’s meeting, said he had no problem with the commission’s plans for treating the ballots.
He said he disagrees with Kilgore’s decision, which results in voters not having a say in who they want for office.
Fite also is a first-term member of the Crawford County Quorum Court, representing District 2. Baker said state law provides for his removal from office by a vote of the Quorum Court declaring a vacancy on the court.
He said that under Arkansas Code Annotated 14-14-1308 and 1309, a vacancy can be declared for the death of a member, if the member is convicted of a felony or for “incompetence, corruption, gross immorality, criminal conduct, malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance.”
Fite’s case would fall in the criminal-conduct category, Baker said.
Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons, who is the attorney for the Franklin County Election Commission, said Thursday that he will meet today with Franklin County Election Commission member John Verkamp to decide on Franklin County’s course of action.
He said the other two commissioners, Chairman John Paul Pendergrass and Randy Hillard, were out of state and would not be present.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/29/2010