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Committee adopts amendment to bill creating a framework for transparent election funding
Summary
The Senate committee adopted an amendment to SB 255, a bill that sets out a framework for more transparent private funding of election-related activities; Secretary of State staff testified that past private COVID-era grants lacked documentation and the bill aims to limit private influence over elections.
Senator McKee introduced SB 255 and its amendment, describing the measure as a framework to increase transparency around funding for Arkansas elections. "That's a simple bill that just simply lays out a framework for transparent funding of Arkansas elections," the sponsor said when presenting the amendment.
Committee members asked whether common courtesies such as bringing food to election workers would be covered; sponsor and witnesses said that ordinary small gestures would not be affected. Leslie Bellamy, Director of Elections for the Arkansas Secretary of State's Office (introduced SEG 328–SEG 330), told the committee that county boards traditionally maintain discrete election line items and that past private COVID-era grants from entities such as Facebook lacked sufficient documentation about expenditures. "We worked with AAC on that so that anything that deals directly with elections would just go to those election line items," she said.
Senators discussed statutory language and whether the bill changed existing law governing what county boards can accept and for what purposes. After questions and discussion the committee voted to pass SB 255 as amended.
The committee did not identify immediate next-step funding or implementation details on the record; sponsors said the measure clarifies permissible private funding and aims to forestall potential outside influence on election administration.
