Arkansas
Presidential election motivates Arkansas Delta's early voters • Arkansas Advocate
Despite Thursday’s near-constant rainfall in East Arkansas, rural Delta counties’ few early voting locations were almost never empty.
Residents of Crittenden, Lee and Phillips counties showed up to make their voices heard in next week’s local, state and federal elections. Lee and Phillips counties have one early voting site each, at their respective county courthouses.
Crittenden County has three early voting locations after the Arkansas Supreme Court ended a dispute between voters and local officials by ordering that early voting must occur at two West Memphis churches. The third site is in Marion, the county seat.
One of the two churches, the Seventh Street Church of Christ, saw about 90 early voters between 4:30 and 6 p.m. Wednesday, poll worker Gwen Freeman said Thursday morning.
Unlike in a few North Arkansas counties, voters in the Delta haven’t been expressing doubt about the security of the machines they use to vote, according to poll workers in all three Delta counties, including Freeman.
When voters have questions for poll workers, they’re often about judicial candidates or proposed state constitutional amendments, first-time poll worker Lawrence Carter said.
“They have a lot of questions about the Supreme Court nominees because they really don’t know who they are,” Carter said. “…Most people vote [entirely] Democrat or Republican, but they can’t because the Supreme Court is neither one of those.”
First-time voters — some of whom are older rather than newly eligible young people — also tend to have questions about how to use the voting machines, Carter said.
Poll workers in Lee County said they’ve gotten some of the same questions about voting machines and the three constitutional amendments. Outside the courthouse’s “small courtroom” with its three voting machines, poll workers taped copies of all 24 possible ballots Lee County voters can receive depending on where they live, with the goal of helping people understand their ballots before they walk into the room.
About 25% of Lee County’s registered voters had already voted by Thursday afternoon, poll workers Donna Westbrook and Vivian Humbert said. Early voting began statewide on Oct. 21.
Meanwhile in Helena-West Helena in Phillips County, poll workers have seen roughly 250 voters per day, which is typical for a presidential election year, poll worker Linda Hayden said.
No one from the State Board of Election Commissioners was present at the Phillips County Courthouse Thursday afternoon, but Phillips County is one of several counties that the board is monitoring during early voting and will continue to monitor on Election Day.
SBEC monitored Phillips and Lee counties during the 2022 election; the board is monitoring Crittenden County but not Lee County this year.
Voters’ priorities
Voters in all three counties said the most important matter on their ballot was the presidential race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.
John Cummings of West Memphis said he is a lifelong Democrat and supported both Harris and state legislative candidate Jessie McGruder. West Memphis has two state House seats, and both have contested races with no incumbents.
Rosie Staples of Helena-West Helena said she also voted for Harris, largely out of concern over the cost of living and access to healthcare.
“I think the best choice is the person that can reduce those costs,” Staples said. “…You can’t trust politicians, period, but you just hope for the best.”
Stone Robbins, also of Helena-West Helena, said his top priority was “Trump all the way.”
“His track record from 2016 to 2020 versus [President Joe] Biden’s track record from 2020 to now is incomparable,” Robbins said.
Randy Bradshaw of Marianna said he also supports Trump. He called the current state of the economy “pitiful” and said he believes current leaders are allowing illegal immigrants and drugs to flow into the country.
“I’m not a Democrat or a Republican,” Bradshaw said. “It don’t matter who is on the ticket. It’s who I think can do the job better… I care about the welfare of my family, myself and everyone else in the United States.”
Bradshaw and his wife voted just before a 1:30 p.m. influx of voters that created a line out the door of the room with the voting machines.
Kerry Stiles, also of Marianna, was part of that line. She said the second-most important race on her ballot was the one for Arkansas House District 62.
Incumbent Rep. Mark McElroy, R-Tillar, faces a rematch against his previous Democratic opponent, Dexter Miller of Helena-West Helena. In 2022, McElroy won by fewer than 200 votes in a newly-drawn district and had previously represented an almost entirely different part of the Delta.
Stiles is a farmer, and she said she supported McElroy for reelection because he is “a big supporter of farmers.”
Her occupation also made it important for her to vote for Issue 1, she said. The proposed constitutional amendment would allow state lottery proceeds to fund scholarships and grants to students in vocational-technical schools and institutions, and Stiles said she believes Arkansas needs more people trained in vo-tech fields.
Two other constitutional amendments are on Arkansans’ ballots, though the votes for Issue 3 will not be counted. The measure would have made changes to the state’s medical marijuana industry; Robbins said he supported it, while Bradshaw said he opposed it.
Teresa Ball said one of her priorities was Issue 2. She recently moved to Fairfield Bay but voted Thursday in Marianna because she is still registered there.
Issue 2 would repeal a Pope County casino license and require countywide special elections for any new casinos built in Arkansas.
“That should be on the ballot, and it should not just be big money that buys [casinos],” Ball said.
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Rex Nelson
Rex Nelson has been senior editor and columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2017, and he has a biweekly podcast called “Southern Fried.”
After graduating from Ouachita Baptist University in 1981, he was a sportswriter for the Arkansas Democrat for a year before becoming editor of Arkadelphia’s Daily Siftings Herald. He was the youngest editor of a daily in Arkansas at age 23. Rex was then news and sports director at KVRC-KDEL from 1983-1985.
He returned to the Democrat as assistant sports editor in 1985. From 1986-1989, he was its Washington correspondent. He left to be Jackson T. Stephens’ consultant.
Rex became the Democrat-Gazette’s first political editor in 1992, but left in 1996 to join then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s office. He also served from 2005-09 in the administration of President George W. Bush.
From 2009-2018, he worked stints at the Communications Group, Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities, and Simmons First National Corp.
Dylan Sherman
Dylan Sherman is a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He is based in Northwest Arkansas and focuses on Tyson Foods Inc. and the transportation industry. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he has been with the newspaper since 2023.
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