Andrew DeMillo: Hearings put Ark. elections in harsh spotlight

How much fraud and irregularity is acceptable in an Arkansas election?

That's the question lawmakers struggled with as they met last week to consider whether to oust a colleague over claims that his victory in a 2006 runoff was marred by forged, missing or illegal ballots.

When a legislative panel held hearings on the disputed 2006 Democratic primary runoff that sent Jack Crumbly to the state Senate, it made history by hearing the first election contest to go before the chamber. It also helped shine a harsh light on voting problems that legislators fear happen all too often throughout the state.

"I don't think there's any question that irregularity occurred as far as this case is concerned, probably more so than I have ever seen," Sen. Bobby Glover, a member of the Senate's State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee, told attorneys on both sides during the two-day hearing. Glover said he believed the credibility of the Senate was at stake in the election contest.

That credibility will be tested in the coming months, as Crumbly's 34 colleagues prepare to decide whether he should be expelled over claims that ballot fraud overshadowed his victory over former Rep. Arnell Willis.

It won't be an easy task. The seven-member committee will continue poring through thousands of voter records and other documents as they deliberate in secret over Crumbly's future.

They have plenty of allegations to consider forged signatures, missing votes and mishandling of ballots, to name a few. What they don't have is a smoking gun, undeniable proof that the election was stolen from Willis.

Willis' attorney acknowledged to senators that he doesn't have video proof that will make his case easier.

"But sometimes when a rabbit runs across your front yard in the snow, you don't have to see the rabbit to know a rabbit ran across your yard. All the tracks are there," Mike Easley said in his opening arguments.

The tracks led to nothing but the Easter Bunny, Crumbly's side argued.

"Just because I tell my 5-year-old daughter there's such a thing as the Easter Bunny doesn't mean there really is an Easter Bunny," Robin Carroll, Crumbly's attorney, told the senators. "Just because you make allegations doesn't mean the facts back them up."

Both Carroll and Easley agree that some of the ballots cast in the election are questionable, but they disagree on how many and what the impact is. Easley says 881 ballots should be tossed out, while Carroll said at most 30 are in question.

Crumbly won the race by 68 votes. Even if fewer than that many ballots are questionable, the whole election is invalid, Easley argued.

"If this election is so indefinite that you cannot take ballot results from it and have confidence in them, then it must be thrown out," Easley told the committee.

No matter what conclusion the committee reaches, it's clear that they're targeting election laws and procedures as much as the 2006 election.

Sen. Steve Faris, the committee's chairman, said the hearings will likely lead to changes in law, particularly on discrepancies he sees in the way absentee ballots are handled compared with other ballots.

"It's my hope that a lot of the points will be part of an election law clean-up package," said Faris, D-Malvern. "There were a lot of discrepancies as far as the election law is concerned that need to be addressed."

Faris and other members of the committee are reluctant to say what those changes might be and cite the secretive nature of their deliberations. Sen. Shawn Womack, a member of the panel, said changes may be needed more in the area of poll worker and election commission training than in state laws.

"I think it appears that there's not uniformity in how some of the processes are handled," said Womack, R-Mountain Home. "I think where we can do better is in making sure the people are more familiar with the process they need to be undertaking as we've laid it out in statute."

Judging the election process may be an easier task than the one at hand deciding whether a colleague should be kicked out of the Senate. But members of the panel say they're ready for both.

"It's not a comfortable feeling to have to sit on a committee like that to make a determination about a fellow senator like this," Glover said. "But by the same token, I feel like we have the responsibility to look at all the testimony and the evidence and to make a proper decision based upon this particular case and be very objective about it."

(DeMillo covers Arkansas politics and government for The Associated Press.)