FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The power is out at the Washington County Courthouse, disrupting the counting process for the Arkansas Primary Election.
The outage started at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 24, impacting how votes are being counted. Officials say one polling location was impacted due to not having any power.
The courthouse is the epicenter for vote counting, but that has now been moved to the Washington County Sheriff's Office on Clydesdale Drive due to the outage.
The cause of the power outage is unknown at this time.
As of 3:15 p.m., more than 10,000 ballots had been cast on Tuesday, adding to the more than 11,000 who voted early.
The Washington County Director of Elections says because of the timing, the outage should not impact any ballot counts. Additionally, she says they don't normally begin setting up until 6:30 a.m. from the first floor of the courthouse to the Quorum Courtroom on the second floor. That paperwork and other machines to count absentee ballots are being taken to the Sheriff's Office Annex and will be ready to go at 7:30 p.m.
Officials want people to know election security is top of mind and that this will still be a secure election. They say they will still check their poll books and handwritten lists of voters they are required to take, making sure that the list matches the number of ballots in the box.
“So this is really just a different location of where will be counting the process will be the same the poll workers will bring their ballot boxes all the materials to a different location to election night I’ll have all the equipment we need done at the sheriff's annex," said Jennifer Price, Washington County Director of Elections.
On Tuesday, Arkansas voters will determine nominees for races including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the U.S. Senate.
The polls opened at 7:30 a.m. and will close at 7:30 p.m.
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