County OKs paper ballots for primary

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County election officials approved ballots Friday for the May 20 primary, and voters should have been able to see those ballots as early as Tuesday.

Dana Caler, elections administrator, said the ballots will be sent to the Secretary of State's Office and uploaded to the Voter View feature on that website.

The county is using new software to produce its ballots this year to save time and money. The ballots approved Friday will be sent to Absolute Print Solution of Jackson, Miss., and a test batch returned as early as Monday, according to Kim Dennison, election coordinator.

John Brown, Election Commission chairman, said the county will check the ballots and, if satisfied, order them.

"We'll run them through the 650 (vote counting machine)," Brown said. "If they run through the 650, we'll order the rest of the ballots."

The county plans to order a small number of paper ballots for early voting. Relatively few voters have asked for paper ballots in past primaries, Caler said. Records show 33 voters used paper ballots in the 2010 primary.

The county will have nine early voting sites from May 5 through May 19, but paper ballots only will be available at the three County Clerk offices in Bentonville, Rogers and Siloam Springs.

Russ Anzalone, election commissioner, said voters who might want to cast paper ballots must go to one of those locations.

Paper ballots will be available Election Day, Brown said. The county plans to order 40,800 paper ballots in the Republican Party primary; 10,246 in the Democratic Party primary; and 6,021 in the nonpartisan and judicial primary, Dennison said.

"There will be paper ballots on Election Day at the precincts," Brown said.

General News on 03/26/2014