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Over 4,300 absentee ballots 'at-risk' of being disqualified in Pulaski County

Pulaski County election commissioners said several issues popped up when they divvied through thousands of absentee ballots.

PULASKI COUNTY, Ark — The Pulaski County Election Commission had its hands full Tuesday's Election Night into early Wednesday morning.

Pulaski County election commissioners said several issues popped up when they divvied through thousands of absentee ballots.

With more absentee votes likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the commissioners had a lot on their plate.

“There are absolutely challenges — things are not perfect,"  an election commissioner said.

The commission reported 4,300 absentee ballots that had are "at-risk" of being disqualified. The disqualifications could be caused by lack of information, such as a birth date or address.

This comes during an election when Pulaski County saw a record number of people vote using an absentee ballot and across the state.

"At this point we go ahead and we're going to go through the provisional process and we're going to review all the ballots we weren't able to count on election day," Pulaski County Director of Elections, Bryan Poe, said. "That'll be about a week-long process where we work with the county clerk's office and make sure we get everybody's vote counted that's eligible to vote."

The commission had to work with another stack of roughly 1,200 absentee ballots they called a “problem” stack. Of those, many were torn or marked incorrectly. Those were not disqualified. Instead. they went through a duplication process so they could become readable and counted.

Although hiccups made it impossible for a perfect election night, the commission praised the poll workers.

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