Secretary Of State Candidate Evaluates Pros, Cons Of Election Bills

Democratic Secretary of State candidate Susan Inman says her elections experience makes her a strong candidate for the office.

Inman, who has directed Pulaski County elections and served as Director of Elections under former Secretary of State Sharon Priest, said that she felt a strong candidate needed to step forward to challenge incumbent GOP Secretary of State Mark Martin.

Inman said legislation passed in the recent session to allow for vote centers and electronic poll books could benefit voters on Election Day. The new laws allow quorum courts to decide if they want to set up universal polling places on Election Day similar to how early voting works.

But Inman said there was much more troubling legislation considered in the 89th General Assembly.

One of the most controversial bills of the session centered around requiring voter ID’s. Democrats and Republicans split along party lines in their vote on the bill, which was vetoed by Gov. Mike Beebe (D) and overridden by the Republican-controlled legislature.

Inman said in her decades of overseeing elections, she has never witnessed examples of voter fraud that the ID law claimed to address.

“Not on election day, no,” Inman said. “It’s actually non-existent in Arkansas or probably most of the country. The only possibility – and its not voter fraud – would be some absentee balloting, which has occurred.”

“That’s the only conceivable avenue where someone could have an issue with voter fraud. It would be election fraud actually,” she added.

Inman also said Gov. Beebe was right to veto three bills that revised how election laws and governance related to the Secretary of State and local county election commissions. The legislature did not override those vetoes.

“Those bills moved to give the office of the Secretary of State some undue power,” she said. “There’s a bifurcated system that we have created between the Secretary of State and the State Board of Election Commissioners and it’s there for a reason.”

Inman was asked a question about the future of voting, including if Internet voting would happen in the near future.

“There may be sometime down the road when we vote on the Internet. It’s not there yet, but we certainly as election officials can make things more comfortable and easier for the voter. And that’s the early voting concept as well,” Inman said.

You can view her full interview below.