At the regular monthly meeting Thursday, Union County Quorum Court who were present voted to raise the per meeting pay of members of the county Election Commission.
County Judge Mike Loftin also said he would eliminate the position of Election Coordinator, which was created in 2018 and which was held by Sonny Ward up until the start of this year.
“We’ve had an election coordinator for two years, and there’s always a squabble about ‘whose job is it to do this, whose job is it to do that?’ back and forth,” Loftin said. “Not that anybody was wrong either way, but it just created some problems and some things didn’t get done on time.”
Communication problems did plague several recent elections, including the 2018 preferential primary and general elections, the latter of which raised questions about the validity of one Justice of the Peace race in the general election between incumbent and current JP Mike Dumas and former JP Steven Ward, where only 32 votes decided the winner.
In June, 2019, then-Election Commission chairman Kermit Parks pointed to Ward as the problem during a dressing down of the commission from Loftin at another Quorum Court meeting.
“I don’t think we’ve missed any elections. I think that has been taken care of,” Parks said then. “There are some problems and communication problems between courthouse folks and the election commission, and I see that as a serious problem.”
The role of the election commission is outlined in Arkansas code, but a general summary of their duty is that of conducting all elections in a county. They must create ballots, define voting locations, notify the public of upcoming elections, submit bills for reimbursement to the state and train election workers, for example.
In January 2020, ahead of the March primary elections, commissioner Janelle Williams was elevated to the role of Chair of the Commission. More problems ensued when, during the primaries, undertrained poll workers were unsure of the necessary process of asking voters their party preference, leading to an unknown number of ballots being spoiled.
Union County Clerk Shannon Phillips also reported that she began receiving calls for help from poll workers at 6 a.m. the day of the primaries because some didn’t know how to turn on their voting machines.
Shortly before the 2020 general elections, Cliff Wright was added to the Union County Election Commission. No major problems were reported in that election, where turnout was more than triple that of the primary and nearly 60% of registered voters turned out.
At the beginning of the year, Wright, a Republican, was elevated to the position of Chair of the Commission. Two new commissioners were also installed last month: Democrat Floyd Thomas and Republican Mike Hayes.
“They actually have legal representation on there as well, which is something they haven’t had since James Baine,” District 3 JP Greg Harrison, who formerly served as an election commissioner, said Thursday, referring to Thomas, who is a lawyer.
The election commission also appointed Valerie Mullins to act as its secretary in February.
Loftin’s proposal called for raising the Commission Chair’s compensation to $200 per meeting; commissioners’ compensation to $150 per meeting; and the commission’s secretary’s compensation to $100 per meeting.
He said that up to $100 per commissioner for up to 10 meetings each year (up to $3,000) will be able to be reimbursed to the county by the state.
“So it’s still going to cost us the same money,” he said.
“It’s been a long time since there’s been a raise for the election commission,” Harrison said.
Dumas asked whether commissioners would be able to call as many meetings as they like to raise their eventual total compensation in a year.
“It won’t be like that,” Loftin said. “I know when they meet. This year, there’s only a school board election and I’ve been told the ballot is finished, so they’ve done about all they need to do for this year.”
Early voting for the upcoming school board election, where only two Parkers Chapel School Board members face opposition, will begin May 11 and continue through May 17, with polls open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day.
Quorum Court members in attendance voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance outlining the pay increases on Thursday.