LITTLE ROCK — Five more Crittenden County residents were arrested and charged Tuesday with using absentee ballots to defraud an election official during three special elections in 2011.
Special Prosecuting Attorney H.G. Foster of Conway filed the charges in Crittenden County Circuit Court after a nearly yearlong investigation that has already resulted in four others, including a state lawmaker, pleading guilty in federal court to felony charges.
The lawmaker also resigned from office.
The new charges were filed against Eric Fontain Cox of Earle and four people from West Memphis - Amos Sanders, Lisa Burns, Deshay Lorenzo Parker III and Leroy Grant.
The Arkansas State Police, the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office conducted the investigation, Foster said.
Arkansas Code Annotated 7-1-104(a)(8) makes it a Class D felony to possess more than 10 absentee ballots at a time creating “a rebuttable presumption of intent to defraud.”
A Class D felony is punishable by up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The investigation has already resulted in guilty pleas from Democratic state Rep. Hudson Hallum of Marion; Hallum’s father, Kent Hallum of Marion; West Memphis City Councilman Phillip Wayne Carter; and West Memphis police officer Sam Malone in federal court to bribing absentee voters with cash, chicken dinners and vodka in exchange for their votes in the 2011 elections - a primary on April 20, a runoff on May 10 and the general election July 12.
The men waived their rights to have the charges reviewed by a federal grand jury. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker accepted the pleas. The four men have not been sentenced, according to court records. The maximum penalty for the conspiracy charge is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Foster said if the five charged Tuesday are convicted he hopes it sends a message that vote fraud is not acceptable in Arkansas.
“That’s going to be nine people out of one county.That’s a bunch of folks to be involved in something like this so I feel like that will send a message to everyone involved in the election process,” Foster said. “What’s important is that the public at large understands that certain behaviors are not only illegal but will not be tolerated.”
Foster, a Democrat, also serves on the Faulkner County Board of Election Commissioners.
He said he hopes the arrests also send a message to law-abiding voters that the process is fair and votes will be counted properly.
“Messing with an election in any way is another method of disenfranchisement” because it removes confidence in the electoral system, Foster said.
Foster would not provide further details on the case until the five people charged have been arraigned.
Allegations of absenteeballot fraud and other fraud rose quickly after the special primary election in May 2011.
On June 1 , Democrat candidate Kim Felker sent a letter to Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington detailing absentee voter fraud she saw.
“One of them had been open and scotch-taped back together. This is just one more example of the tampering and inconsistencies in the absentee process of this election,” she wrote.
She also detailed instances where people’s names appeared on more than one absentee ballot, people being informed that ballots had been mailed in their names and a phone message where a man, who gave her Grant’s name, offered to sell her absentee votes instead of giving them to Hallum.
Felker provided the names and addresses of several of the people involved.
Ellington said at the time that he had asked state police to investigate.
It is legal to obtain and possess up to two absentee ballots under Arkansas Code Annotated 7-5-403, which refers to that person as a designated bearer. A designated bearer must deliver the ballot directly to the person he obtained it for and return it directly to the county clerk after the vote has been cast.
Allegations of absenteevoter fraud arise occasionally after elections.
In 2011, a Forrest City alderman was charged under A.C.A. 7-1-104 with carrying 12 ballots during the 2010 general election.
In 2004, an Earle alderman was found guilty in federal court of making false statements to a grand jury about how many ballots he carried during the 2002 general election.
In 2002, a Phillips County Quorum Court member pleaded guilty in federal court to casting more than 25 absentee ballots during the Democratic Party primary election.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/26/2012