Over the past several months, I have knocked every primary voter door in Benton County JP District1; and had many many hundreds of fantastic conversations. What was the number one concern on the minds of the citizens I spoke with? How do we know our election process is secure?

Simple, have multiple people from each side as well as impartial observers in a room, and read the candidate name on each ballot, and place it in the correct stack by-hand. It’s an audit, and any candidate under Arkansas law can request this type of audit.

So to make sure that every citizen voter I spoke with, can feel 100% assurance that their vote was counted correctly, I filed the following Petition with the Benton County Election Commission. Now this process is not free, but I feel this is the best way – that I as a candidate can provide assurance to each voter.

Here is what I put in as the rationale for the by-hand recount request.

A large number of voters have concerns about Electronic Voting Machines. Some voters even attempted to request paper ballots on election day, which is not allowed under current rules. For this reason, to assure the voters that each ballot cast is counted correctly, I am requesting a full by-hand recount of each voter ballot in the Benton County JP District1 race.

A copy of the full Petition is available as a PDF by clicking on this link.

EDIT: Benton County Election Commission – 1428 W Walnut St, Rogers, AR 72756 – will open it’s doors at 9:00am – Monday March 11, 2024 – anyone who wants to come and watch the by-hand recount of Benton County JP District1, is welcome to attend.

EDIT: Happy to report the by-hand paper ballot count was 100% match to what the Electronic Voting Machines reported on Election Night! Now we enter the final phase of ballot counting, provisional ballots (meaning ballots that had Voter issues of either an ID problem or lost Absentee ballot issue) – and one dear to my heart, we will finish the 10 day period, awaiting all military ballots on March 15th!

Posted on: March 7, 2024, by : Michael McCaskey