Arkansas voters encountered occasional hindrances to voting Tuesday but nothing insurmountable as of mid-day, election officials said.
Daniel Shults, director of the Arkansas Board of Election Commissioners, said his office had received a few calls — as always happens — from people who have questions and concerns about electioneering and things like that.
"To my knowledge all polls are open and operational," Shults said. "If anyone does have concerns, we want to be made aware of it. We don't have anything along that line as of this moment."
The agency takes complaints for up to 30 days after the election, Shults said.
In Pulaski County, Elections Director Bryan Poe said issues with the opening of election day were "nothing out of the ordinary," and that all polling places opened on time Tuesday morning.
He said he believes the voting in the morning was steady but without large crowds.
Stu Stoffer, Jefferson County election commissioner, called the early hours of election day "a nightmare," reminiscent of the early 1960s sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? that centered on police reaction to a never-ending series of emergency calls in the Bronx.
He blamed the problems on inadequate, aging equipment that has long needed to be replaced.
"We told the secretary of state that this was going to happen," Stoffer said. "we told the media that this was going to happen and yet we do not have new voting equipment in Jefferson County."
In addition to ballot problems with the Senate 25 and 27 races uncovered earlier in the week, election officials struggled Monday night to load corrected election information to the election reporting manager laptop. That problem was overcome, but hours later on Tuesday morning, there were some 20 instances of equipment failure at polling places. Those were largely due to loose connections between a tape printer and the iVotronic voting machines, causing the machines to fail to turn on. Four of the iVotronic machines had to be replaced, Stoffer said.
Stoffer also told of an encounter he had with a voter who declined to show any identification but wanted to vote anyway. Stoffer said he told the voter that he would either show ID and vote a provisional ballot or leave in handcuffs. The voter apologized and the matter was resolved.
By late morning, all the Jefferson County machines were operating, Stoffer said, adding that high school students from Pine Bluff, White Hall and Dollarway who were serving as trained "election pages" had been particularly helpful at various polling sites.