Opinion ID: 2192371
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bulk Mailing

Text: Nevertheless, I would affirm the trial court's decision on the merits. The applicable statute at the time of the election read: (a) Absentee voting may be accomplished in one (1) of the two (2) following methods, and in no other manner: (1) By ballot cast my mail which must be received in the office of the county clerk of the county of residence of the voter not later than 7:30 p.m. on election day. However, absentee ballots applied for not later than thirty (30) days before the election, by qualified electors outside the United States on election day which are signed and dated by the voters no later than the day of the election and received by the county clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. ten (10) calendar days after the date of the election; Ark.Code Ann. § 7-5-411 (1987). By its plain terms, there is no prohibition against bulk mailing of absentee ballots. King relies heavily on the case of Roach v. Kirk, 228 Ark. 958, 311 S.W.2d 525 (1958), which by dictum indicates that absentee ballots must be personally mailed. That was clearly not the holding in Roach . Moreover, that case predates Act 465 of 1969, which provides for casting ballots by mail and which does not require personal mailing. If the General Assembly had wanted to do so, it could easily have required personal mailing by each absentee voter. It did not do so by Act 465 of 1969. In fact, the General Assembly did not amend § 7-5-411(a)(1) to require personal mailing until 1999 when it added this language: The qualified elector shall personally mail his ballot, except that an administrator may mail the absentee ballots of a long-term care or residential care facility's residents in a single mailing. 1999 ARK. ACTS 1586 § 1. A personal mailing component cannot be read into the statute by the courts for elections that occurred prior to Act 1586 of 1999. For that reason alone I would affirm. SMITH, J., joins.