BENTON, Ark.—The prosecutor in Saline County says no crime was committed at the Fairplay Baptist Church last election day.

Same goes for the Salem United Methodist Church and the Paron Fire Station, even though voters committed the misdemeanor of double voting at the three sites.

The Saline County Election Commission expressed alarm when it found that three people cast early voting and election day ballots in the February and May elections.

Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Ken Casady’s office investigated, as did the sheriff’s department. Casady concluded the voters didn’t intend to commit a crime, even though they could have faced Class A misdemeanor charges.

He said the three people “simply forgot that they had voted in the early election process. They saw people assembled around the voting center (during early voting) and voted then.”

Later, on election day, “they returned to their precincts and voted again. They did this openly; they didn’t hide the fact that they were voting. They were given a ballot, and they just voted again.”

Casady didn’t release the names of the targets of the investigation because they were not charged.

He sent letters to the three explaining his decision.

“I believe that although you admitted voting twice, I don’t feel you did so with any criminal intent,” Casady said in the letters. “Having said that, I consider the matter very serious and am cautioning you strongly to never engage in this behavior again or you could be charged with ... illegal voting.”

“Voting is serious business to us,” Saline County Clerk Freddy Burton told The Benton Courier. “The integrity of the election is serious. In some races, one, two or three additional votes could change the outcome.”

Patrick Rhodes, a member of the county Election Commission, agreed. “This is a matter of law and principle,” Rhodes said. “Voting more than once is a misdemeanor offense. The law was broken and action should be taken to establish a precedent that serves notice that such things will not be tolerated.”

Burton said poll workers on election day are unable to verify whether someone has already voted because the early voting process continues through Monday, the day before the actual election.

Rhodes says that leaves an opening for voter fraud among the county’s 36 precincts.

“If three people voted twice in every precinct, that has the possibility of generating 216 extra votes, which certainly could change the outcome in many elections,” he said. “This shouldn’t be brushed aside.”

Burton said he would like the state to cut off early voting on the Friday prior to an election so his clerks can mark the names of people who have already cast ballots.

“Right now there’s no foolproof way to make sure that someone hasn’t already voted,” he said.

Casady told the newspaper that he did not charge the election violators because they were “not trying to sway the results of the election.”

“If there had been this kind of attempt, I would have charged them,” Casady said.

Casady said he checked with officials in Pulaski County and was told that 20 to 30 of these incidents occur in every election. “They aren’t charged there when there’s no evidence of fraud,” he said.