Poll worker Louis Pettiford monitors the parking lot outside the Garland County Election Commission, one of seven early voting sites in the county, on Monday, November 4, 2024. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
South Central Arkansans who voted early on Monday cited the economy and abortion as driving forces behind the way they voted, particularly in the presidential race.
“We can’t have another four years like what we just had,” Pine Bluff voter Gary Magness said Monday afternoon outside the Jefferson County Courthouse.
Magness and his wife, Margaret, said they voted for Republican former President Donald Trump. Other voters the Advocate spoke with in Jefferson, Grant and Garland counties didn’t share whether they voted for Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris but said they wanted to see a lower cost of living under the next presidential administration.
Some voters said their stances on access to abortion drew them to the polls. Arkansas’ abortion ban, in effect since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, contains no exceptions besides a narrow one if the pregnant person’s life is in danger. Harris has made the promise of restoring abortion access a primary campaign message.
“She wants to stand up there and give speeches in churches, but pretty much everything that she stands for is against the godly values and the Christian values that we were built on,” Margaret Magness said.
Jefferson County voter turnout has been high, with 800 early voters by 3:30 p.m. Monday, said poll judge Bobby Parker, who has been a poll worker since 2008.
Early voting began statewide on Oct. 21, and Parker said the courthouse has seen more than 1,000 voters some days and an “unusual” number of people who have never voted before.
“We’ve probably had over 100 first-time voters this time,” he said. “Normally I may not see but five or six in a two-week period.”
Poll workers in Grant and Garland counties said early voter turnout was comparable to previous years. Shortly before noon Monday, the Garland County Election Commission building had seen more than 200 voters, poll worker Paul Meeks said.
Garland County had seven early voting sites, while Jefferson and Grant counties had one each.
About 43% of registered Grant County voters had voted by Saturday, which was similar to voter turnout in 2020, County Clerk Geral Harrison said. Voter turnout is often higher during presidential election years than during midterm election years.
Poll workers in several counties, not just the three in South Central Arkansas, have said voters’ most frequently asked questions are about the three proposed constitutional amendments on their ballots.
“It’s imperative that people read about the ballot prior to getting in here, because if they’re sitting there reading every amendment, they’re taking time, and we want [voting] to flow smoothly,” Meeks said.
Issue 2 would repeal a Pope County casino license and require countywide special elections for any new casinos built in Arkansas.
Jennifer Mouton of Hot Springs said she voted against Issue 2 “because it’s already been voted on.” Arkansas voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2018 that authorized four casinos statewide, including one in Pope County that has seen years of legal disputes over licensing and ownership.
Sandra Henry of Sheridan expressed support for Issue 2, saying she agreed with advocates for it that “the community it’s proposed to go in should have a say.” A majority of Pope County voters rejected the 2018 amendment.
Both Trump voters, Henry said she is a registered Republican while Mouton said she is an Independent.
“How we left a person in office that is completely incapable [of leading],” Mouton said, referring to President Joe Biden, “that’s both sides’ fault.”
She added that she believed Harris should have instigated Biden’s removal from office.
Biden initially ran for reelection but stepped aside in July, allowing Harris to assume the Democratic nomination for president.
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Immigration, abortion and unity
Mouton, both Magnesses and Tonya Maxwell of Sheridan all said they were worried about illegal immigration via the United States’ southern border.
“I think that if we don’t fix something with our borders, we’re setting ourselves up to be overtaken by any of several different countries, or several different ones coming together to overthrow us,” Maxwell said.
She and her friend Barbara Mullins, also of Sheridan, both said they wanted the next president to protect Social Security and other government-provided sources of income for older and disabled Americans. They did not say which candidate they believed would do this if elected.
Both said they’re also concerned about the cost of living and the stability of local businesses, citing a grocery store that closed in Sheridan recently.
Maxwell said the question of abortion access is important to her because she is a Christian who opposes the wide availability of abortion but believes it should be allowed in special circumstances such as rape.
Supporters of abortion access submitted more than 102,000 signatures to Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston in July, hoping to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would have created a limited right to abortion. The measure would have allowed abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies.
Thurston and the Arkansas Supreme Court disqualified some of the signatures on a technicality, leaving the remaining signatures below the required minimum, so the amendment is not on Arkansans’ ballots.
Even so, Meeks said he met one Garland County voter who arrived at the polling place expecting the abortion amendment to be on the ballot as “Issue 4.”
Dorothy Morris of Hot Springs said she dislikes both presidential candidates and voted for who she believes is the “less bad” of the two, but abortion is a high priority for her as a voter.
“I think women should have the right to choose, and that is what I do not like about the Republicans,” she said. “We’re going to go back to coat hangers [as tools for abortions] like we did years ago… They’re going to punish women, and it’s wrong.”
Pine Bluff voter Camesha Marks said her vote for president was also motivated by “my rights as a woman,” but added that local issues on her ballot, such as the city’s mayoral race and a sales tax initiative supporting public schools, were more important to her.
Loretta McCollum of Prattsville, a small city west of Sheridan, didn’t cite specific policy issues as motivators. Instead she said Americans should “all come together and try to make a common bond,” despite differences of identity or party, “for the betterment of the country, because this country needs help.”
Margie Langston of Pine Bluff said both the cost of living and the divisiveness in the country concerned her.
“I would love to see more unity within every race of people because that’s the only way it’s going to work for our children,” Langston said. “This is more important than anything, that we’ve got children coming up behind us. What are we going to leave them?”
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