Voters Face New Law, Changes

BENTONVILLE -- Horace Crosby, 64, of Gentry had no photo identification that met the state's new voter identification law's requirements. So he became the first voter in Benton County to have an election ID made for him at the county clerk's office -- and the camera on the machine broke.

The incident Wednesday doesn't bode well for voters in Northwest Arkansas with primary Election Day looming Tuesday, said Tyler Clark, Washington County Democratic Party chairman. The camera glitch was only a brief problem in a process that took two hours to complete, according to Crosby.

Benton County Clerk Tena O'Brien said the process with Crosby took, at most, 30 minutes. Much of that was spent confirming Crosby was entitled to vote in Arkansas, she said. Crosby travels between Louisiana and Arkansas and doesn't have an Arkansas driver's license, but one from Louisiana, he said. Crosby left the office during the process and came back much later, O'Brien said. Crosby said he left to retrieve documents he thought he needed to prove his identity under the new law. He counted the trip in his two-hour estimate.

"The folks in the county office were very nice and courteous," Crosby said. "They were trying to help. Still, I'm a 64-year-old retired man. I had the time to go through this. A lot of people wouldn't, and an election is no time to have an experiment."

The broken camera on the ID printer is no longer a problem, O'Brien said. She credited election coordinator Dana Cayler with devising a solution. Cayler was able to take a picture of Crosby using the camera on her cellular phone, then worked out a way to link that to the ID printer. This improvised solution is available for any other voters who need an ID, O'Brien and Cayler said.

So far, Crosby and his wife are the only residents who have asked for county-provided voter IDs, O'Brien said Friday. The ID printer, with its built-in camera, is provided by the secretary of state's office.

The state's new voter ID law requires photo identification to vote. A circuit court ruling in Pulaski County recently declared the law an unconstitutional barrier to voting, but the ruling wasn't put into effect pending an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

A registered voter can obtain a photo ID from the county clerk, but must present two pieces of identification, one containing a full legal name and date of birth, the other showing a residential address. Examples of the first type include a birth certificate, marriage license application, or a pay stub with the imprinted name of the employer. Examples of the second include a utility or cable bill issued within the last 60 days, a bank statement issued in the same time period, or a personal property tax bill for the current or preceding calendar year.

Although Tuesday's primary is Benton and Washington counties' first with the new voter ID law, other counties have gone through special elections with these provisions and reported problems on election day at poll sites, said Maria Baez de Hicks of Fayetteville. Both Pulaski and Craighead counties had special elections where large numbers of ballots were set aside as "provisional" because voters lacked proper identification, she said.

Hicks is chairwoman of the state Democratic Party's 3rd District Hispanic Caucus and was recently elected president of Arkansas Democratic Women. She is a longtime opponent of the state's voter identification law.

Washington County has suffered no such problems in early voting, which began May 5, said Becky Lewallen, county clerk.

"Knock on wood, we don't have a provisional ballot yet" out of more than 1,200 cast as of Tuesday, she said. Most voters are used to presenting photo identification because that's the form of identification they carry with them, she said. In the past, identification such as a utility bill sufficed for voters who didn't carry a driver's license. The new law requires the ID have a photo.

Much of the state's information about meeting the requirements of voter identification is only available online and in English, Hicks said, and this works against the poor, minorities and the elderly. U.S. Census figures show more than 35 percent of Arkansans don't have Internet access in their homes. This compares to a national average of 30 percent.

The best estimate of the number of voters in Northwest Arkansas whose primary language is Spanish is about 2 percent, Hicks said. Party organizers arrived at that estimate by looking through voter registration rolls and picking out names they believe show direct and recent Hispanic origin. This is a rough estimate, but Hicks believes it's conservative.

"There are people whose primary language is Spanish whose names are Williams or Cunningham," she said.

Organizations representing elderly Arkansans, particularly those requiring nursing home care, were among the leading opponents of the voter identification law when it was debated in the Legislature.

Jerry Mitchell of Harrison, director of the Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Arkansas, said he hasn't heard of problems so far in Benton or Washington counties in obtaining absentee ballots for nursing home residents or other older voters who cannot travel to the polls or to early voting.

The Highland Health Care and Rehabilitation Center, a 90-bed nursing home in Bella Vista, finished returning absentee ballots for its residents with no problems, said director Bobbi Duncan.

Lack of proper identification isn't the only potential hurdle awaiting voters Tuesday. Other issues include changing precincts and confusion on rules governing primary runoffs.

"If you can put something in the newspaper, put this: If you vote in the Democratic primary you won't be able to vote in the Republican runoff," said John Brown Jr., Benton County's Election Commission chairman. "And if you vote in the Republican primary, you won't be able to vote in a Democratic runoff."

That rule applies to all counties, but has been a historic problem in Northwest Arkansas, with a strong presence of both major political parties.

Arkansas' "open primary" system allows voters to vote in either primary. Someone who voted in a Democratic primary in 2012, for instance, can vote in a Republican primary this year. However, anyone who votes in one party's primary cannot vote in a different party's primary runoff in the same year.

For instance, there are three candidates for Benton County judge. If none get a majority in the May 20 primary, there will be a runoff June 10. No one who voted in the Democratic primary on May 20 is allowed to receive a ballot for the June 10 Republican runoff.

Voters will decide nonpartisan judicial races Tuesday, the same day as partisan primaries.

Benton County had to redraw its precinct map last year after changes in state law. A new state law required that no one precinct have more than 3,000 voters. The county went from 57 precincts to 73, requiring a change in polling places for many.

The county mailed postcards informing voters of new polling places, Brown said. The changes in precincts and voting locations garnered news coverage, also, and a link on the county's website will locate a voter's polling place for him.

Still, "people go vote where they've always gone before," Brown said. "Somebody's going to show up at the same place and be told he can't vote there any more."

Election officials at the polling places will assist voters who arrive at the wrong site, Brown said.

"The best thing to do, though, is early vote," he said. "You go in the county clerk's office and they can figure out what precinct you're in right there." Early voting ends at 5 p.m. Monday.

"The second best thing to do is go to our website and look up 'Voter View,'" Brown said. That is the secretary of state's website that will find a voter's polling place. It's at https://www.voterview.ar-nova.org/VoterView/RegistrantSearch.do

"You can call the county clerk's office and ask where your polling place is, but those ladies are really busy right now," Brown said.

Washington County also changed some precincts to comply with the state law, but the changes weren't as extensive as those in Benton County, Lewallen said. She also advised voters to go to the "Voter View" website, and said help would also be available at polling places.

NW News on 05/18/2014