FAYETTEVILLE -- Dozens of early voters found the Washington County courthouse doors locked Wednesday afternoon after a power outage shut down voting computers and the metal detector for about an hour and a half.
Several hundred buildings in a three block area near Spring Street and Church Avenue lost power at 1:14 p.m., said Scott McCloud, a Swepco spokesman. Linemen working to repair the problem said it was likely caused by a rat or a snake. Power was restored to the courthouse about 2:45 p.m. and throughout the area by 4:30 p.m.
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Meanwhile, several voters for the Nov. 4 election queued outside the front doors while several dozen walked back to their cars. Volunteers from the University of Arkansas Young Democrats handed out a form from the county clerk's office showing the hours of operation for the five other early voting polling place. The volunteers explained the problem without mentioning their party affiliation or any specific candidate or issue.
The outage interrupted the voting of a handful of people who were using touch-screen ballots in the Quorum Court room. Their electronic votes weren't counted.
"We kind of got shepherded upstairs to fill out paper ballots" in the county clerk's office, said Emily Carson, president of the Young Democrats. "I'm pretty confident my ballot's going where it needs to go."
No ballots were lost and no votes will be counted twice, said Jennifer Price, election coordinator.
About 400 people cast their votes in the courthouse between 8 a.m. and the power loss, Clerk Becky Lewallen said. At that rate, about 100 voters would have arrived in the time span of the outage.
Early votes can be cast in Fayetteville at the county courthouse, Boys & Girls Club and Medical Arts Pharmacy, as well as at Arvest Ballpark and the Rodeo Community Center in Springdale and at Prairie Grove's City Hall. Any voter in the county can cast an early ballot at any of the locations. All but the ballpark are open until 6 p.m. today.
Complete schedules for early voting polls and sample ballots are available at www.co.washington.ar.us/index.aspx?page=596
NW News on 10/23/2014