Are You Upset About the 2020 Election?

*Bill has been amended, but still has multiple issues not corrected*

Fellow Arkansans,

A very liberal democrat, Senator Clarke Tucker, has sponsored a bill that would legalize everything that went wrong in the 2020 election. SB217 is everything that we cannot let be passed into law in order to keep an ounce of integrity in our elections.

SB217 unexpectedly passed out of committee on Thursday, April 1. Unfortunately, this was not a bad April Fool’s Day joke. The bill would allow Arkansas to be turned into a Pennsylvania or other states where election fraud and stealing elections would be easier to undertake.

The bill passed on a 5-2 roll call vote with Senators:

Clarke Tucker, Breanne Davis, Cecile Bledsoe, Jane English, and Bart Hester voting Yes.

Trent Garner and Bob Ballinger voted No.

Please contact your senator and tell them to vote NO on SB217!

SOME of the Reasons Why the Bill is SO BAD:

Throws Integrity Standards Out the Window – MORE VOTER FRAUD POTENTIAL. This bill changes election laws related to absentee ballots to increase the opportunity for election fraud and stealing elections.
Late Delivery of Absentee Ballots Allowed. Would allow for absentee ballots to be accepted 10 days after the election. Currently these are due by the closing of polls on election day.
“Curing” of Provisional Ballots. It would extend the time a person can “cure” and make valid their provisional ballot. Currently a ballot must be cured by the Monday after an election, but the bill seeks to extend this to the day of the certification.
“Curing” of Provisional Ballots by Phone.The bill also allows for people to cure a ballot by phone, with no safeguards to ensure voter integrity other than someone calling in to cure a ballot. This opens the doors for activists to work with people to cure their otherwise uncountable ballot. Notices would be sent to encourage people to cure their ballots rather than the responsibility falling on the individual to follow through and cure their ballot, if possible.
Broad Rule Making Authority over Handling Absentee Ballots. The bill also allows broad rule making authority to the state board of election commissioners (politically motivated individuals), including rules over the storage, and labeling of ballot boxes.
This law GROTESQUELY EXPANDS THE TIME FRAME for opening absentee ballots from one week before the election, to ANY TIME BEFORE THE ELECTION. In other words, it goes MUCH FURTHER than the Governor’s Emergency Declaration, extending the period for opening absentee ballots by a full week, in 2020.
CONTRARY TO THE GOVERNOR’S 2020 PROCLAMATION, THE ACTUAL COUNTING IN Pulaski County, WHERE THERE WAS AN ENORMOUS INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF ABSENTEE BALLOTS IN 2020, showed that there was ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR THIS one-week EXPANSION OF THE PROCESSING TIME IN 2020. On multiple occasions, IN BOTH WEEKS, the PULASKI Election Commission staff sent their poll workers home, or did not have them come in at all, BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING FROM THE CLERK’S OFFICE FOR THEM TO PROCESS. The addition time in 2020 was completely unnecessary. But this type of expansion of the time to open and process absentee ballots IS FULLY PART AND PARCEL OF THE “PROGRESSIVES” TO ALL FOR AS MUCH “PLAY TIME” AS POSSIBLE with open ballot information. It leads to excess litigation and ONLY PROVIDES MORE TIME for 3rd party groups to harvest ballots and literally count votes (because, as seen below, the ballot secrecy envelope can be opened early). Moreover, this type of expansion is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE for poll watchers and party officials to oversee because it is such a long time (really, 50 days or more before the election).
SB 217 also EVISCERATES CURRENT LAW which precludes opening of the “inner” secrecy (ballot only) envelope before 8:30 am on Election Day. As the Governor’s 2020 proclamation explicitly pointed out, opening of the inner secrecy envelope exposes the ballot to the eyes of poll workers, and poll watchers, that is, it (unfortunately) allows for unscrupulous individuals to count votes before tabulation. The protection was built into law to prevent this kind of chicanery. SB 217 allows opening of ballot secrecy envelopes – unconditionally – for any period before the election – and makes no provision for additional protection for the inner envelopes after opening. Moreover, given the processing, there is absolutely no method of knowing which inner secrecy envelopes were legitimately opened, and which were not opened legitimately, because the integrity of the inner ballot secrecy envelope is destroyed. This is directly contrary to legitimate ballot secrecy provisions in current law. It is also the explicit method allegedly used to “steal elections” in other states during the 2020 Presidential election. [Current law allows inner secrecy envelopes to be opened after 8:30 am on Election Day and requires absentee ballots with “missing” materials to be set aside for review on Election Day – and not earlier – to protect the integrity of the secrecy of the ballot before voting on Election Day, i.e., no early counting, even by the election commission staff.]
SB 217 also explicitly PRECLUDES Election Commissioners from amending their certified election results, even if information becomes available that a mistake has been made. Once certified, WRONG RESULTS become the real results and getting them overturned in court or anywhere else is virtually impossible. Worse, SB 217 indicates that election commissioners may only certify the “then-current” computer count of the ballots, whether the commission has ascertained that it is the correct result or not. So, it dictates that ONE CANDIDATE wins, no matter what mistakes poll workers or staff admitted, committed, or flubbed, because the computer has a number and that number is going to be the result whether it was stolen, flubbed up with provisional ballots, stuffed with multiple-counted ballots, or otherwise. This eviscerates the legal requirement in current law that the election commission ascertain who won, based on all the evidence known, whether it shows in “the computer” or not.