With early voting starting next week in Arkansas, here are some quick tips for voters not yet prepared to vote in the Nov. 8 general election.
The first will show you exactly what will be on your ballot.
Go to https://www.voterview.ar-nova.org/voterview. Fill in your name and birth date to look up your registration information.
What will come back are details of your registration, including your voting precinct. In some counties, voters may choose to vote at any vote center but the precinct name or number determines which ballot you will get.
There are separate lists for election day voting sites and for early voting sites. Each specifies when the sites will be open.
Scroll through the vote centers to find a convenient location, then go to the bottom of the page to view the sample ballot for your precinct.
Click on the link and what will come back to you is the sample ballot showing all the races and issues voters on which voters in your precinct will cast votes.
All Arkansas ballots will have many of the same races and issues. The ballots differ when there are contested district and local races and/or ballot issues.
Statewide, Arkansas voters will choose among candidates for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, auditor of state and commissioner of state lands.
In almost all cases, there are Democratic, Republican and Libertarian candidates for the statewide posts. But there are few incumbents seeking reelection. Most of the state-level officials in these offices were term-limited and could not run again for the same office.
Several of the current officials are, however, seeking other statewide offices.
Voters in the state's four congressional districts will also choose their U.S. representative to serve in Washington, D.C., while voters in different Arkansas Senate and House of Representatives' districts will fill those state-level seats, too.
There's even a statewide runoff to decide a nonpartisan state Supreme Court race on the upcoming ballot.
The ballots get even more diverse when races for county offices and county issues are added to the mix. City races further complicate individual ballots.
Wrapping up the ballots are the four proposed state constitutional amendments, all of which are more complicated than they may seem and each of which deserves serious scrutiny from voters. Every voter in the state will see these four issues on their respective ballots.
Issues 1, 2 and 3 were referred to the people by the Legislature while Issue 4 is the product of an initiative petition.
Issue 1 would allow the Legislature to convene in special session upon the call of the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate upon submission of a written proclamation signed by at least two-thirds of the Senate and House. Currently, only the governor may call the Legislature into special session.
Issue 2 would raise the requirement for passage of proposed constitutional amendments to at least 60% of the vote. The current requirement for passage is 50% plus one vote.
Issue 3 would create the Arkansas Religious Freedom Amendment, providing that government may never burden a person's freedom of religion except in rare circumstances.
Issue 4, circulated by Responsible Growth Arkansas and financially backed largely by current manufacturers and sellers of medical marijuana in Arkansas, would amend the medical marijuana amendment passed by voters just four years ago to allow possession and use of nonmedical marijuana by adults.
Issue 4 would also lock into the state Constitution many of the regulations for the industry, prohibiting the Legislature from making changes and requiring another public vote to rewrite any of those provisions.
That sample ballot you can print out and take the polls with you will have the popular name and ballot title for each of the Issues, but reading that really isn't all you need to know.
A neutral source for information on all the ballot issues is the University of Arkansas extension service. You can download a voter guide on all four 2022 ballot issues from its Public Policy Center site at www.uaex.uada.edu/ballot.
Meanwhile, to familiarize yourself with the candidates for nine major offices in the state, tune in this week to the Arkansas PBS debate series.
The debates, which are being broadcast on PBS stations, are running all week and may be viewed on demand on the Arkansas PBS YouTube channel.