Don’t forget those ballot items, even if a couple of them are quite forgettable
Early voting starts on Monday, Oct. 19, and while you’ve likely thought about some of the national, state and local candidates on the ballot, there are those four issues that will need tending to as well.
While Republicans keep trying to make it harder for the public to get initiated acts in front of voters, lawmakers themselves are all about taking advantage of the three opportunities they get each election season – even if it means putting meaningless items on the ballot.
Take Issue Nos. 1 and 2, for instance.
Let’s start with Issue No. 1, which defines who is eligible to vote. Yep, we’re still debating that here in Arkansas, even though by now you might assume that we’ve pretty well nailed down that only legit voters are going to the polls. The Arkansas Constitution already says you have to be a U.S. citizen, a resident of Arkansas, at least 18 years old and registered to vote in order to legally vote.
But that was not good enough for the Arkansas General Assembly, which is led by Republicans who perhaps view voting by noncitizens not so much as an actual problem, but more as a hot-button emotional issue they can use as bait to lure their base to the polls in a year when none of the Republican candidates are ginning up much excitement.
We call your attention to the investigator hired by Secretary of State Cole Jester to root out all the election fraud Republicans just knew was out there. The investigator finally called it quits in August because he couldn’t find anything to root out.
Another investigation by Jester to identify all those non-citizens on Arkansas voter rolls was similarly unfruitful, revealing that 0.01% of the state’s registered electorate were noncitizens.
Ergo no on No. 1.
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Ditto Issue No. 2.
The name of this waste of space is an amendment “to protect the right to keep and bear arms.”
The problem for Arkansas lawmakers here is that, once again, there’s already a law on the state’s books that citizens have a right to keep and bear arms. And even if we didn’t have that particular law in place, it wouldn’t matter a whit because right there in the U.S. Constitution is the Second Amendment, which, you being from Arkansas, understand completely.
The “fix” here, as written by lawmakers, is to provide these rights without any limitations on ammunition, firearm accessories and firearm components. In the event that ammunition, accessories and components might at some future date become wholly objectionable and yet protected in law, we think a leave-well-enough-alone stance is best.
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Issue No. 3 is maybe the most thought-provoking of the bunch. A yes vote on this would allow the General Assembly to create economic development districts across the state. There are things to like about this ballot initiative. Economic development can be a good thing, giving cities and counties another tool for making it happen.
But overall, it seems as if the proposal is undercooked. The enabling legislation wasn’t passed in 2025 so now the rules of the road for how Issue 3 would operate are anyone’s guess.
There are also a couple of other troubling parts to this. If it passes, cities and counties would have wide latitude to take public tax dollars and direct them to private projects in any number of ways. And a fiscal impact statement from the state Department of Finance and Administration said that if Issue No. 3 was implemented, “local tax entities would see a decrease in property tax collections.”
If that’s the case, it seems as if the state, with Issue No. 3, would be in the business of picking winners and losers. And by extension, if the tax collections drop in those economic development areas, guess who will have to pick up the unmet tax burden? Yes, you!
You may find yourself in the “this-is-needed” camp, and we get that, but again, it seems like more work is needed before this is ready to be considered by voters.
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Issue No. 4 – this is a bond issue and not counted as one of the three items the Legislature can put before voters – is an easy yes, considering we all like having drinking water around, and passage of this would ensure that continues to happen.
A yes vote on this issue would allow the state to issue up to $500 million in bonds to help cities and counties fix and upgrade water treatment systems and a variety of other projects such as pollution control, wetlands, waste disposal, drainage and irrigation – all the basic things that everyone depends on.
Voters have passed similar issues in the past, and when this $500 million runs out, they will be asked to do it again. In short, this system has a proven track record of putting money in places where it is undeniably needed.
If you want to read up on any or all of these four ballot items, the state Cooperative Extension Service, as it always does, has done a good job explaining them.