Heated committee hearing on SB 209 over canvasser misconduct standard; public testifies that proposal risks voter disenfranchisement

A contentious hearing on Senate Bill 209 took up a large portion of the House State Agencies & Governmental Affairs Committee’s Oct. 12 session. The bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. Ken Underwood and carried in the Senate by Sen. Kim Hammer, would allow the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office to disqualify signatures — including whole pages of petition signatures collected by a canvasser — when the office finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the canvasser violated state canvassing or criminal statutes during the current election cycle.

The sponsor and Secretary of State officials said the measure is intended to discourage fraud and misrepresentation by paid canvassers and give the office clearer authority to exclude tainted signatures. Representative Ken Underwood presented the bill and invited staff from the Secretary of State’s office to explain current practice. Nathan Lee, chief counsel for the Secretary of State, and Leslie Bellamy, director of elections at that office, described how the office currently reviews signatures, meets with petition sponsors, and removes individual signatures or duplicates when they are found invalid. They said SB 209 would expand the office’s authority to disqualify all signatures tied to a canvasser…