LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas’ Board of Election Commissioners approved emergency rules Friday that give additional time for absentee voters to submit proof of identification, just weeks after the state’s attorney general said that should not be allowed.
The new emergency rules divided the board, with two members saying they were concerned about the rules contradicting the opinion of Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.
McDaniel wrote in a Feb. 10 review that absentee voters who did not show required proof of identification with their ballot should not be given more time after an election ends to provide those documents. McDaniel said legislators who wrote the state’s voter identification law did not intend for absentee voters to be able to cast provisional ballots, excluding first-time voters.
That law was approved last year after a Republican-led legislature overturned a veto by Gov. Mike Beebe.
McDaniel’s office said in an email that the attorney general has reviewed the changes and that his position has not wavered, adding, “We were not consulted by the secretary of state or the commission before they adopted this rule.”
Board member Rhonda Cole said she was wary about the new rules, because they challenge McDaniel’s assessment on absentee voters and the state’s law. Board member Barbara McBryde agreed with Cole.
“We’re changing these rules based on a law that’s not there,” Cole said.
Martha Adcock, the secretary of state’s general counsel, countered that the rules level how absentee voters’ ballots are treated in elections across the board.
She said the attorney general’s opinion shows absentee voters submitting their ballot for the first time who did not send in identification forms are treated as provisional, whereas non-first-time absentee voters are not.
“So you have two sets of absentee voters that are not treated consistently,” Adcock said. “I think that if you would look at what the law would be, you would say we need to be fair and treat all those voters the same. And so if you treat all of them, you come back and treat them as provisional.”
Karla Burnett, an attorney representing the Pulaski County Election Commission, said the board was exceeding its authority by establishing the rules. She said she would advise the Pulaski County Election Commission to file a lawsuit. The commission is set to consider the board’s new rules in its meeting Saturday morning.
But board member Stuart Soffer said the rules allow less “hardship” for absentee voters.
“I would rather be litigated against for erring on the side of the voter and not disenfranchising the voter than I would for going the other direction,” Soffer said. “So sue me for erring on the side of the voter.”
The debate over absentee voters sparked after dozens of ballots were submitted in a special election in northeast Arkansas.
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