LOGAN COUNTY, Arkansas — Philip Blankenship has served as a justice of the peace in Logan County for over three years. He was running for re-election in March 5's primary as this was his first race with an opponent.
"I love politics. I love solving problems. And that's I feel like government is a place where you can help society and really try to solve issues that go on," Blakenship said. Stood out on the street corner for a few hours on Election Day, waved at everyone going by."
Blankenship said that he and his wife went to vote early when his wife realized his name wasn't on the ballot and the candidates were for the wrong district.
"I had to kind of explain this is a pretty big issue for me not to be on her ballot, because I'm not electable. I'm on the ballot in the wrong district," Blankenship said.
Blankenship then contacted the Logan County Election Commission which said it resolved the issue.
"They said 'we realized the problem; we're working on fixing that this is how we're going to resolve it moving forward. We did an update in in the computer. All the ballots should be correct now,'" Blankenship recalled. "And so, I'm like, okay, that sounds great."
The next day, his daughter went to vote, and she said he was not on her ballot.
"She has the same address as I do, so she should've had the right ballot," Blankenship said.
After speaking with the election commission, Blankenship believes they did everything to try and fix the mistake, but he said he was left wondering how many people received the wrong ballot for their district.
"I lost by 24 votes. But to me, this issue is much bigger than whether or not I won or lost. This issue is about confidence in the election system," Blankenship said. “I'm not questioning their count. I'm questioning whether or not the right people got to vote in the right spots."
Logan County Election Commission said in a statement "We were made aware of an issue with a single ballot type. We immediately contacted the State and formulated and implemented a plan to protect the integrity of the affected race. We are using every resource available to assess the impact, if any, on the outcome."
The commission told Blankenship that it feels confident that the results are correct but he's planning on filing a complaint and wanting a re-vote. Blankenship said the election commission told him he could request a recount, but he believes it's not a matter of recounting the votes, but having residents fill out a correct and new ballot.
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