Several incidents with the electronic voting machines have been reported during early voting in Walnut Ridge according to the County Clerk Tina Stowers. According to reports a malfunction with the machines has changed some votes.

The problem with the machines is calibration and not any type of illegal activity according to a statement given by Stowers. The issue seems to be with the moving of the machines in and out of the vault each night. Voters who notice the malfunction and reporting it have the ballot cancelled and are allowed to recast their vote but some votes have been cast and can not be retried. Stowers stated anyone seeing a problem with their voting ballot needs to bring it to the attention of poll workers but once the official ballot is cast it can not be changed.

Early voting is up significantly in Lawrence County and there is  no way of knowing how this will affect  the outcome of Lawrence County elections or how many defective ballots have been cast already.

No reports have been made about any other polling problems in Lawrence County have been made at this time.