Benton County certifies Nov. 6 election

NWA Democrat-Gazette File Photo/BEN GOFF 'I Voted' stickers for early voters Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018, at the Benton County Election Commission office in Rogers.
NWA Democrat-Gazette File Photo/BEN GOFF 'I Voted' stickers for early voters Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018, at the Benton County Election Commission office in Rogers.

ROGERS -- Benton County saw a voter turnout near 50 percent in the midterm election, but one missing computer thumb drive still drove the conversation at an Election Commission meeting today.

Jon Comstock, a Democrat who ran for state Senate, asked about the election night mishap where a thumb drive of votes was left at the bottom of a bag brought in from a Rogers vote center on election night. In all, 834 votes were missed. Those voters were added into the unofficial totals when the commission met Nov. 9. The commission met Friday to certify the results.

Benton County Runoffs

Runoff elections in Benton County are:

Bella Vista Ward 2, Position 2

• Christian Henning

• Larry Wilms

Bella Vista Ward 3, Position 2

• Jack Kelly

• Steven Bourke

Bentonville Mayor

• Jim Webb

• Stephanie Orman

Cave Springs Mayor

• Travis Lee

• Randall Noblett

Cave Springs Ward 3, Position 1

• Mike Middlecamp

• Mac Olinger

Lowell City Clerk

• Liz Estes

• Martha Brown

Source: Benton County Clerk’s Office

The thumb drive was found Nov. 7 after Christie Craig, a Democrat running for the Arkansas House District 96 seat, was looking at precinct-by-precinct numbers on the state election website and noticed the numbers from that area of Rogers seemed low, Kim Dennison, election coordinator, previously said. Craig contacted the Election Commission.

Dennison said no election outcomes were affected by the missing votes, which were from the Centro Cristiano de Rogers church on First Street. Dennison took an election tape, a printout made on election night of all votes cast at the location and added the numbers to determine if any races changed.

Votes tallied from the church location showed Comstock and Democratic candidates bested their Republican rivals but not enough to change the outcome of any of the races.

Comstock lost his bid to unseat Republican Cecile Bledsoe in the District 3 state Senate race. Bledsoe received 14,598 votes (62 percent) to Comstock's 8,968 votes (38 percent). Comstock is a former Benton County circuit judge.

He filed a Freedom of Information request with the Election Commission on Tuesday. Comstock asked for 18 items of information, including some that dealt directly with the church location and others related to the Election Commission's work on election day. County Attorney George Spence was still fulfilling the request on Friday, Dennison said.

Comstock asked the commission if there was an adequate audit check in place on election night and what the commission plans to do so the mistake isn't repeated.

Commission Chairman Russell Anzalone told Comstock the error would have been discovered during the 10-day period used to certify the election results.

"It was a mistake we made by not taking it out of the bag," Anzalone said. "We are working on a process to do better, especially on election night when we release unofficial results."

ES&S, the company that provides the electronic systems and software for county elections, will be involved in any process changes, Anzalone said.

The Election Commission certified the results of the Nov. 6 election, which saw a 49 percent turnout. There were 77,918 ballots cast of 158,933 registered voters.

The turnout was a bit of a disappointment to Anzalone.

"That's less than half," he said. "I hoped we would get 50 percent. We came close."

The county processed 230 provisional ballots; 123 were counted. The others were from residents who weren't registered to vote. There were 1,202 absentee votes cast, and 17 weren't allowed.

The county has seen steady growth in the number of registered voters. There were 127,008 registered voters in 2014. That number grew to 143,974 in 2016. Betsy Harrell with the County Clerk's Office said more than 4,100 new voters were added in the 60 days before the deadline to register this year.

The Election Commission will now focus on runoff elections to be held Dec. 4. Early voting at the County Clerk's offices in Bentonville and Rogers will start Nov. 27 and run through Dec. 3. Hours will be 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

NW News on 11/17/2018

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