Multiple Voting Hiccups In Benton County

Three-Hour Waits Reported

Incorrect ballots, a shortage of paper ballots and high voter turnout — perhaps as high as 70 percent — made for headaches for Benton County voters and election officials alike.

“Voter turnout has just been tremendous,” said Kim Dennison, Benton County election coordinator. “It’s not what we expected at all.”

Robbyn Tumey, election commissioner, said 40,000 to 41,000 early votes were cast as compared with 31,000 early votes in 2008.

“It was just like a Sandy coming in,” Tumey said, comparing turnout to last week’s superstorm which paralyzed the northeast.

Benton County Judge Bob Clinard said polling problems appeared to be directly related to a much bigger-than-expected turnout, and the turnout appears driven by the large numbers of issues on the ballot as opposed to candidates.

“We have a presidential race, an amendment for a highway tax, medical marijuana, and alcohol sales,” Clinard said. “These are issues on so many people’s minds. It looks like a perfect storm.”

The county will have to “take a look at more polling places” in light of Tuesday’s events, Clinard said. The county’s also going to have to look again at the issue of balancing electronic voting and paper ballots.

Voters received the wrong ballots at First Assembly of God Church in Bentonville until midday, Dennison said. Volunteer poll workers were confused on which ballot to give voters. She said about 400 voters could have received the wrong ballot before the error was fixed.

Five contested Bentonville City Council races should have been on the ballot.

“This is something I can do nothing about,” Dennison said. “It is one of those things where the voters should have known what they were voting on. Once they got to the machine they should not have voted.”

Bill Burckart is running for Ward 3 Position 2 on City Council.

“That is my ward that I have represented for years. It is my largest voting block,” Burckart said. “We had a great turnout this morning and I have a lot of disappointed constituents. I am told they cannot vote again. I don’t know what the ramifications are.”

“We are going to look to see what happened as soon as possible,” said John Brown, commission chairman.

“I don’t know exactly what was going on,” Brown said. “We have to sit down and look at the books. Until we can get into the books, I can’t comment.”

Volunteer pollworkers started the day at 7:30 a.m. in Sulphur Springs with two broken machines and 30 paper ballots.

Maurine Styles, a volunteer, said the precinct was out of ballots shortly after the doors opened.

“People were very understanding, but it is embarrassing to say, ‘You can’t vote’,” Styles said. She said the machines were fixed shortly after 9 a.m.

Marilee Todd was turned away. She was unable to wait because she had a doctor’s appointment.

“I’m going to try and get back to vote later in the day, but it’s not going to be easy,” she said.

Paper ballots began to run out across the county by 9 a.m., Dennison said.

Brian Schafer lives on the east side of Beaver Lake and votes at the Rocky Branch Methodist Church. He went to vote at 8:30 a.m. and was told they were out of paper ballots.

“They told me they were only given 30 paper ballots for the whole precinct,” he said. “It seems to me like they are forcing people to use the electronic machines and I don’t trust those machines. They act like this election just snuck up on them. To not have a backup plan is just crazy.”

He filed a written complaint with the Election Commission.

By late morning, Brown was driving to Fort Smith to purchase more paper to print ballots. Ballots must be printed on a certain type of paper, he said.

Tumey said the commission printed twice the number of ballots used in the last two presidential elections. More than 16,500 paper ballots were ordered and an additional 2,500 were printed during early voting. Ballots were also printed Tuesday as needed.

As the evening wore on, voters continued trying to cast ballots.

Katherine Vandergrift spent two hours Tuesday night in line at First Presbyterian Church in Bentonville. “It’s the most people I’ve seen voting here,” she said.

Polling places closed at 7:30, but those in line were allowed to vote.

In Pea Ridge, some 200 voters were still in line at 8:15 p.m. They were lined up in the Fire Department engine bay waiting.

“We got hit hard today, and it was brutal,” Tumey said.

Annette Beard, Amye Buckley, Teresa Moss, Doug Thompson and Tracy M. Neal contributed to this report.

Possible pull quote: “We got hit hard today, and it was brutal,” Robbyn Tumey, election commissioner

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