Secretary Of State Employee Remarks Roils Clerks

A partisan comment made in a partisan setting, but captured on tape, has sparked a new controversy involving Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office.

Rob Moritz with our content partner, the Arkansas News Bureau, reports:

The spokesman for Arkansas’ Republican secretary of state said Thursday the office works well with all of the state’s county clerks, though earlier before a GOP group he suggested Democratic clerks were registering illegal immigrants to vote.

Alex Reed, spokesman for Secretary of State Mark Martin, initially denied comments he made in a speech to the Union County Republican Committee on Monday that were attributed to him in an El Dorado News-Times report. On Wednesday, Martin told county clerks at meeting in Springdale this week that Reed was misquoted.

However, the newspaper posted a recording of Reed’s comments on its blog Thursday, in which he said, in response to questions about illegal immigrants registering to vote: “That’s why I preach around to the county officials that it’s so important to have a Republican county clerk in every county.

“Because that’s the main person there and that’s who we work with the most, and either through error, they register and they have an address (that is bad) and (say) ‘Oh well, they’re registered voters.’ I don’t know what to say about it but except it’s kind of a disgrace.”

You can read more from the report at this link.