The Arkansas Legislature is currently in recess until May 1, 2023. Many bills were passed by the legislature and signed into law before the recess, but the focus of this post is on Senate Bill 250, which was signed into law as Act 350.
This new law actually makes additions to already-existing law concerning statewide voting regulations. These additions to the law deal with further regulation of elections and paper ballots.
The law now states that every county in Arkansas must use ballots that can be counted using a vote-counting machine that has been approved by Arkansas’ Secretary of State. However, the law stipulates that a county that chooses ballots that are not compatible with the Secretary of State’s chosen machine(s) must itself pay for the entire cost of those ballots and any machines necessary for printing or counting those ballots.
Act 350 reiterates that counties that choose not to use the voting machines approved by the Secretary of State are still required to comply with laws that provide for accessibility to handicapped voters.
Additionally, counties must submit their (unofficial) vote totals to the state within 24 hours of polls closing – even if the votes are being tabulated by hand.
In other words, counties are discouraged from using traditional paper ballots. Also, the voting machines which a county uses must be Secretary-of-State approved. If a county wishes to use paper ballots – or apparently “non-approved” machines – the county must pay for it out of its own pocket.
This is a link to an NPR (KUAR affiliate) article that discusses why the legislature felt it was necessary to regulate paper ballots:
Here is the new law (copied from https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?id=SB250&ddBienniumSession=2023%2F2023R). The new additions that are now law are comprised of the underlined text:
Greene County, Arkansas, Democrats 