State Board of Election Commissioners Jamie Clemmer and Bilenda Harris-Ritter during a meeting on July 15, 2024, to consider a permanent rule requiring “wet signatures” on Arkansas voter registration forms except at select state agencies. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
The Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday approved the use of favorable language regarding electronic voting machines for a future press release, despite pushback from one member.
The language was written in the executive summary portion of the agency’s first audit report of primary elections, which is now required under Act 620 of 2023 . The agency audited 15 randomly selected Arkansas counties after the March primaries and found perfect accuracy from election machines and discrepancies in hand-counted results.
Requested by Commissioner William Luther, and approved by all other present members except Jonathan Williams, the section of the report reads: “The result of the audit shows that counties utilizing voting equipment had confirmed 100% accurate results. The county that chose to utilize a hand-count process did not achieve 100% results and identified ballots that it failed to count.”