Arkansas: Documenting Your Vote

This page covers information specific to Arkansas. For general information regarding legal issues associated with documenting your vote, see the Documenting Your Vote section of this guide.

We have not analyzed in detail the Arkansas laws regulating polling place activities yet, but we received the following communication from a staff attorney in the Arkansas Secretary of State's office:

No statute in Arkansas specifically prohibits cameras in polling places. The most relevant statute is 7-1-104(6) which provides:
 
"It shall be unlawful for any person to prevent or to interfere with any qualified elector from voting at any election or to attempt to prevent or interfere with any qualified elector from voting at any election, provided that this subdivision (a)(6) shall not prohibit good faith challenges of ballots or voters according to law by candidates, authorized representatives of candidates, political parties, or ballot issues[.]"
 
That said, many counties, at the discretion of the county's board of election commissioners, discourage presence in the polling place of people other than poll workers, electors, and other election officials due to the limited space and the realistic possibility of voters feeling less than comfortable casting their votes in front of a camera crew. It's the desire of the election officials that the polling places remain as neutral as possible so that people may vote without fear of scrutiny.