Last month, The Gateway Pundit reported about FOIA’d emails that suggest the state of Arkansas is concerned about President Trump’s Executive Order 14248 and the effects it will have on their voting system. Specifically, they seemed concerned about how they would cover the costs to replace ballot-marking devices, following the order from the President to the Elections Assistance Commission to ban voting systems that rely on a QR code or barcode that is counted as the voter’s intent.
For the 2024 Presidential Primary and General Election, Searcy County, Arkansas became the first in the state to conduct their elections on hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots, casting off the ExpressVote ES&S ballot-marking device system with bipartisan support. In days following the 2024 Election, Democrat Election Commissioner LC Ratchford told KATV abc 7:
“Both the Democrats and the Republicans, we want everyone to be sure that their vote was counted in a fair way. And it doesn’t matter to us as a commission who wins, who does not win.”
Following a bumpy 2024 Presidential Primary, but then a 2024 Presidential Election in which the county results were 100% accurate in the hand-marked, hand-counted process, all three Searcy County Election Commission members are being decertified by the State Election Board of Commissioners (SEBC) and cannot work in elections in any capacity for 14 years.
The county was off by 11 votes in their first-ever hand-count election.
The SEBC is made up of seven members, including the Secretary of State as the Chairman. Both leaders of the legislature designate a nominee, as does each party (Democrat and Republican). The Governor also has designee on the board.
Searcy County was able to move to hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots after a bipartisan resolution passed their quorum court (legislative body) by a 6-2 vote. One of the main oppositions was the increased cost; however, the 2024 Primary came in 18% cheaper than the 2022 Primary conducted on voting machines.
However, during the 2024 Primary, it was found that “11 ballots that should have been counted were not” in Searcy County, according to Little Rock Public Radio. Note: The SEBC report does not make any reference to 11 votes specifically that were found as not counted by the audit, but rather the SEBC learned that this from Searcy officials, suggesting it was caught by the county before the audit was conducted:
(pg.5) SBEC auditors learned from Searcy officials from their testimony before the Joint Performance Review committee, that they discovered eleven (11) ballots that should have been counted but were not.
The findings resulted in sanctions against the county following the SECB’s audit, despite the ballots apparently being accounted for during the standard processes to ensure accuracy.
Ironically, Searcy County was also off by 11 votes in their 2022 mid-term primary conducted on voting machines. Two votes in that election also went “missing.”
But what officials believe ultimately led to the decertification of the county commission members was an alleged “missing” invoice to lease audio-visual equipment to allow citizens to monitor the hand-count in real-time. The equipment was leased for $100 for the day by the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative, a non-profit that campaigns for hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. The Searcy board hadn’t supplied the invoice with the FOIA on time, claiming that they were conducting an election and needed the resources focused on that and not FOIAs. The invoice was eventually provided, but not before an investigative report was released.
During the hearing to decertify the board members, the SEBC did not not ask the Searcy officials questions nor permit them to speak at their own decertification hearing. According to Gross, they hadn’t even received the complaint to review beforehand. Colonel Conrad Reynolds of the Arkansas voter Integrity Initiative told The Gateway Pundit in a statement:
The good people of Searcy County have been bullied since 2023 when they began discussing the transition away from touchscreen voting computers to hand-marked paper ballots with hand-counts. Now, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her hand-picked Secretary of State Cole Jester have allowed the state to continue the bullying by banning the election commissioners who implemented the paper election.The State made claims that $100 per day rental for video equipment to make the hand-count transparent was “too cheap.” Apparently the State wanted the county to shop for the highest price and not the best deal for election transparency. The State never called my organization, AVII.org, to ask about our fees or why we charge $100 per day to rent the video cameras and TVs for the public hand-count.
Last week, Gross joined Conduit News. Below is a segment in which she describes how Searcy County felt “purposefully entrapped.”
Enter: A New SOS Candidate – Hand-Marked/Hand-Counted Supporter, Bryan Norris
Bryan Norris, a combat veteran who retired from the U.S. Army as a First Sergeant, has announced a challenge to the current Secretary of State, who was appointed by Governor Huckabee Sanders following the resignation of John Thurston, the elected Secretary of State, to become the State Treasurer. Secretary Jester is not able to run for the position since he’d previously been appointed to fill a vacancy, according to Amendment 29 of the Arkansas Constitution.
Norris spearheaded the effort in Independence County through a citizen petition to restore hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. After making its way up to the Arkansas Supreme Court, Independence saw the ballot measure added and then passed with 63% of the vote.
According to his press release, “Norris supports a system where ballots are scanned once through tabulators for an initial count, then publicly hand-counted before results are certified (emphasis added) – ensuring public trust without removing technology entirely.”
He has thus far been endorsed by General Mike Flynn, Mike Lindell, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, Colonel Conrad Reynolds, and Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers.
I’m officially running for Secretary of State of Arkansas.
It’s time to restore trust in our elections and bring common-sense leadership to Little Rock.
From the battlefield to the ballot box—your vote, our commitment.
Let’s go.#NorrisForArkansas #ElectionIntegrity… pic.twitter.com/QDM0v1OqtA
— Bryan Norris (@BryanLeeNorris) June 20, 2025
The post Pioneer ‘Hand-Marked, Hand-Counted’ Arkansas County Election Commission Is De-certified by State Board – and Put on 14-Year Prohibition appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.