Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Oct. 29, 2024 – Craighead County Clerk Mary Dawn Marshall addressed voter confusion in Monday’s Quorum Court meeting.
Some voters have reported not being able to cast a vote for the Jonesboro mayor. Marshall said this is because these voters, while they may have a Jonesboro zip code, live outside the city limits. According to Arkansas law, a mayor of a city with a mayor-council form of government must be elected by a majority of voters who live in the city limits.
“What they are upset about is not being able to vote for the mayor of Jonesboro if they don’t live in the city limits,” Marshall said. “We’ll be happy to pull their map up, but they are convinced if they have city utilities of any kind that they should be able to vote for the mayor of Jonesboro.”
She called on the Quorum Court members to explain district boundaries to their constituents and added that voters with questions about their ballots can contact her or the County Clerk’s office.
In addition, she spoke about what voters can do if there is a mistake on their ballot or if they are having trouble voting. She said if voters notice a problem with their ballot, they need to talk to one of the poll workers and to not enter their ballot in the tabulator.
“Let one of the poll workers know [if there’s a problem.] They will bring you back to one of us that are up front, we can spoil that ballot,” she said. “It’s a process, but we will be happy to do it and we will reissue. We can do that three times.”
She added that when voters are casting their ballots at the voting machines, they should be patient when casting their vote, and not to keep tapping if something is not selected. Instead, they need to wait a bit for their option to be selected.
“The machines are touchscreen. [Voters] do not have to touch that little tiny black box, an X is not gonna show up. It turns the entire name green when you touch it,” Marshall said. “If anyone has trouble with their touchscreen, they can holler at [a poll worker] and anyone will be happy to come and assist them. We go through and wipe the screens off, but honestly, the amount of lotion, dirt, oils from skin that build up on the machines, can cause them to have a little bit of a ‘move’ in them. But if you’ll touch that and then stop, it’ll populate. You don’t keep pushing, it won’t work.”
Early voting began Oct. 21 and ends Nov. 4. More information can be found here. Voters can also read about the candidates, state issues and local issues on the ballot.
As of Oct. 28, Craighead County reported a total of 14,263 early votes cast.
