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Senate panel considers and then rejects changes to absentee ballot rules in SB701
Summary
Senate State Agencies & Governmental Affairs committee reviewed an amendment to Senate Bill 701 that would change absentee-ballot curing, canvas procedures and chain-of-custody rules; the motion to pass failed for lack of a majority and earlier recorded votes adopting the amendment were expunged.
Senator Cassandra Tucker, sponsor of Senate Bill 701, presented a new amendment that would codify procedures for handling absentee ballots, limit how certain defects are cured and require clearer absentee ballot applications.
Tucker told the committee the amendment would make clear that absentee ballots designated provisional for missing voter identification could be cured only consistent with Arkansas Constitution Amendment 51, Section 13, and that a missing voter statement would render an absentee ballot ineligible to be counted. "If your voter statement is not included with your absentee ballot, then your vote will not be counted," Tucker said, describing the change as an explicit clarification in the proposed language.
The amendment removes the phrase allowing electronic curing by unspecified…
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