WASHINGTON COUNTY (KFSM) -- The names of more than 4,000 Arkansas voters were accidentally sent to county clerks around the state to be removed from voter rolls.
It's routine for the Arkansas Secretary of State's Office to give county clerks a list of names with voting eligibility.
In early July 2016, a batch of names, compiled by the Department of Community Corrections (DCC) and the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC), included names of felons who had been pardoned or had their convictions discharged. Names of people who had never been convicted of a felony were also mistakenly added to the list.
The problem was eventually brought to the secretary of state's office, which in turn informed clerks to avoid processing names on the lists.
"Apparently, they didn't know how far back the data went, so they went ahead and loaded all the older data as well as the current data," said Becky Lewallen, county clerk of Washington County. "So you have a lot of convictions that are out there that have been discharged, or pardoned, or they weren't even convicted felonies at all."
Lewallen said no names have been removed from voter registration lists. Her office will wait for the next batch of names, which are expected to include up-to-date information.
"We'll go through the same process: Check them out, make sure they're real felons, they have not been discharged and we'll remove them and send them a letter at the time," Lewallen said. "If you don't receive a letter, then there's no reason to worry."