The Arkansas Democratic Party remains unsatisfied with Secretary of State Mark Martin’s response to its efforts to find information underlying Martin’s decision to circulate a badly flawed list of supposed felons for county clerks to strike from voter rolls. We now know that many were wrongly dropped. Many more would have been but for work by county clerks not to immediately drop voters.
Said Party Chairman Vincent Insalaco:
“Arkansans must ask themselves why Republican Secretary of State Mark Martin has refused to grant a single interview or make public comment about his voter roll scandal. Mark Martin is either failing to do his job, hiding emails from the public… or both. The Democratic Party of Arkansas will not let Mark Martin stand in the way of Arkansan’s sacred right to vote. If Mark Martin has a private account, he should turn it over immediately. Voters deserve to know what actions the man they elected as Secretary of State has taken to correct his office’s embarrassing blunder.
From Democratic Party of Arkansas Legal Counsel Chris Burks:
“Mark Martin finally provided voter purge documents to the public. However, none of the emails released were from Mark Martin. This leads the public to believe Mark Martin has zero emails about purging 7,000 plus voters from county rolls. If Mark Martin sent no emails regarding the voter roll purge, he is neglecting his duties under the Arkansas Constitution. If he does have emails, he is violating the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act by not turning them over.
The public is entitled to see Mark Martin’s emails, whether or not they are sent through a private email address or an official government email address, as established by Arkansas law.”
The party has made a new request for information, tailored to determine if Martin has sent information from a private account and has so far not provided it. For its part, Martin’s office has insisted to the Democratic Party that it has complied with the law fully in responding to FOI requests.