AG McDaniel, Legislators Push Election Reforms
By: David Goins
Updated: March 7, 2013
Joined by Senate and House members on Thursday, Mcdaniel unveiling a push for election and ballot reform.
The package of three separate bills SB 343, SB 821 and SB 822 targets everything from fake signatures on ballot initiatives to criminal background checks for candidates.
"This is important because too often we are seeing issues in a candidates past create uncertainty in our system," McDaniel says.
Two of the initiatives filed Thursday morning by West Memphis state senator Keith Ingram.
East Arkansas was rocked last fall by the resignation of Marion state representative Hudson Hallum who admitted in federal court to paying for absentee votes with food and alcohol.
"These bills will give law enforcement additional tools to cut down on vote tampering," Ingram says.
Arkansas also saw a big spike in ballot initiative fraud last summer with thousands of petition signatures blatantly forged.
"If we have a document where someone actually put one person's name thirty times on a document we would want to find who in fact did that," McDaniel says.


