Local Super Tuesday confusion addressed

A great deal of confusion arose Tuesday evening as the votes came in for the Circuit Judge District 2, Division 6, Subdistrict 2.1 race involving Blytheville deputy prosecutor Curtis Walker, Jr. and West Memphis attorney Tonya Alexander. The confusion was doubled by the fact that their names appeared on ballots, not only in Mississippi and Crittenden counties, but also erroneously in Greene and Craighead Counties.

Greene County County Clerk Phyllis Rhynes confirmed to the CN that the error occurred.

"They were certified by the state to appear on Craighead and Greene County ballots," Rhynes said.

When asked what the process was once the mistake was realized, Rhynes directed the CN to the Secretary of State's office, "I feel uncomfortable answering that because that's a state issue not a county issue."

Jeanette Robertson, Chairman of the Craighead County Election Commission said, "We found out during the first few days of early voting that the race shouldn't be on the ballot and we made a determination to contact ES&S, who programs our ballots...as soon as we contacted them they agreed that it was their fault and that agreed to provide us with a software patch, free of charge, that would suppress all votes in that race from Craighead County so that they would not be included in what we sent to the Secretary of State's office...so it did not affect their race."

Chris Powell, the press manager for Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin told the CN, "It seems that they were certified to several counties because they fell within that division, but that race is a part of a subdivision. That district includes Mississippi and Crittenden Counties so it may have showed up in multiple counties that wasn't supposed to...we gave instructions to them on how to remove those votes from the vote total. There has been an issue in a couple of these judicial races."

When asked if it was a software issue or a human error that caused it to occur as well as whether the issue has been corrected in such a way as to not occur next time, Powell said, "I've just got some new information...I just got it in this morning, so I need to read it and get back to you with the details."

Curtis Walker, Jr. had this to say about the Election Day results, "God is still good. I definitely appreciate the Mississippi County voters that came out and supported me. There were also a lot of people that wanted to vote, but couldn't because of where they lived. I also appreciate all the votes I got in the other two counties, unfortunately they don't count."

Alexander told the CN, "Before I filed I obtained a map of the district and that district was federally mandated by the Hunt decree that created a couple minority judicial districts within the Arkansas Delta...I contacted the Secretary of State and the boundaries were clear. I was under no delusions. I knew which counties and I was clear...this is not a newly created district. The last time [it was contested] was, I think, 16 years ago before Judge Hill took office."

Apparently the confusion arose weeks before Election Day.

"When absentee ballot applications began I contacted the Secretary of State, the Attorney General's office and Mr. [inaudible] at the Governor's office and got this all cleared up. No one was excluded...the only confusion came from someone not doing their research. I had no doubt about where...I even knew down to the street where the district was," Alexander added.

The Secretary of State's office confirmed that uncertified results for the race are: Alexander 2,283 votes of 56.73 percent to Walker's 1,741 votes or 43.27 percent of the vote.

Alexander took 79.1 percent of Crittenden Counties' vote and Walker won 78.5 percent of Mississippi County's vote. The difference clearly was that Crittenden County cast 900 more votes than Mississippi County did in this election.

Alexander had this to say about the victory, "I'm quite pleased. We ran a clean race. I thank all those that supported the campaign and I look forward to taking office come January 1st."

The CN left a series of questions on the voice mail of media relations for Election Systems & Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb. but no return call has been made as of press time.

thenry@blythevillecourier.com