Parties, voters turn attention to coming election !`` Nov. 4 is shaping up as a huge day.
Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008
BENTON COUNTY - In the Nov. 4 elections, Benton County voters will help to pick a new president and a representative in Congress. They will also vote to fill numerous county and other offices and decide many ballot questions that day.
And that's to say nothing of the nonpartisan judicial elections, which will also take place Nov. 4.
All the voters who will be counted in Benton County have now done what they needed to do to vote.
But they didn't do it alone. Other people, with some various efforts, have helped make it possible.
One of these is Mary Lou Slinkard.
Slinkard is the county clerk and voter registrar for Benton County. She has held both positions for nearly three decades.
"We just had quite a big response to people registering to vote," Slinkard said. "It's been pretty steady all along, for several weeks now - not just the in-person registration, but the ones that we get by mail. We literally get stacks and stacks, and we have for days and days been getting several applications for voter registration."
The Clerk's Office is now focusing on voter registration and expects to have a registered-voter count in a little more than a week. But the office is also focusing on other voter needs.
"At the same time, of course, we are processing literally hundreds of absentee ballot requests for those persons that are overseas, and military persons," Slinkard said. "We're trying to get those out first. We have several long-term-care requests and some from nursing homes, as well as other folks who are traveling or unable to go to the polls on Election Day. If a person qualifies to vote by mail, then of course they have that avenue of voting, also."
Registered voters should make sure they have the correct address in their registration and might want to avoid waiting to check to be sure of that on Election Day, Slinkard said.
Although people who register to vote in Arkansas may, but don't have to, declare a party affiliation in the process, both major political parties have had many volunteers dedicated to registering voters - volunteers who have apparently been anxious to help all they can the would-be voters who want to get registered.
Gwen Millager is familiar with the recent voter-registration efforts of some Benton County Democrats.
She talked about the effort recently at the party's county headquarters in Rogers. Both parties offer transportation The party was busy finding would-be voters at the recent Benton County Fair, but apparently hit its stride in still another voter-registration effort.
Democrats offered to, and often did, transport applications for registration to the County Clerk's Office, she said.
Millager is not sure how many people Democrats helped get registered.
Mike Sevak is familiar with the voter-registration effort of some Benton County Republicans.
He talked about it Monday at his party's Benton County headquarters, also in downtown Rogers.
The GOP helped would-be registered voters get their application paperwork together at the recent Benton County Fair.
The GOP managed to register many new voters, he said.
He's not certain yet how many registrations the party helped with, he said.
"We really didn't count them. About every other day, we'd take a pretty good stack over to the County Clerk's Office to drop them off," Sevak said.
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