The Arkansas Supreme Court building in Little Rock. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that early voting must occur at two West Memphis churches.
The decision comes four days before early voting begins in Arkansas and after a few weeks of fast-paced legal filings and a ruling from Crittenden County Circuit Judge Chris Thyer, who ordered local election officials to conduct early voting at the Seventh Street Church of Christ in West Memphis — one of three contested sites.
East Arkansas election officials appeal ruling requiring early vote location in West Memphis
Attorney Joe Rogers appealed Thyer’s order on behalf of the members of the Crittenden County Board of Election Commissioners on Oct. 4. The commissioners, and later Attorney General Tim Griffin through an amicus brief, argued that County Clerk Paula Brown inappropriately designated the Seventh Street Church as an early polling site and called on the commissioners to staff it.
Earlier Thursday, the court granted Griffin permission to file his “friend-of-the-court” brief, despite an attempt to disallow it by the attorney for the plaintiffs in the original case.
Hours later, in a decision authored by Justice Courtney Rae Hudson, the high court sided with Thyer’s ruling in that Brown appropriately designated the Seventh Street Church of Christ as an early voting location, but found Brown should conduct the voting, not the county election commissioners.
The high court also reversed part of Thyer’s ruling, in which he said election commissioners were not required to conduct early voting at the First Baptist Church in West Memphis — which had been used as an early voting site in 2022 — because the commissioners did not establish it as a polling site this year.
Hudson said sites outside of the county seat established by the county board of election commissioners “remain the same for subsequent general elections unless the Board votes to change the polling sites.”
“I’m just thrilled that we got a fair and reasonable decision and that the court followed the law and that the voters in West Memphis are the ones who are going to benefit from it,” said Attorney Jennifer Standerfer, who represented two West Memphis voters in the case.
A call to Rogers’ office was unanswered.
Justices Rhonda Wood and Shawn Womack both concurred and dissented from the majority opinion.
Wood cited a different statute to support the clerk’s authority, and she said she found the circuit court was correct in not requiring early voting at the First Baptist Church.
Womack said he disagreed with the majority’s opinion to use “early voting location” and “polling site” synonymously. Because state statute discusses the two separately, Womack said the court should also consider them separately. He also found that the circuit court correctly ruled that early voting should not occur at the First Baptist Church.
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