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Public Servants in Independence County Declare Open War on Their Own Citizens
Public Servants in Independence County Declare Open War on Their Own Citizens
Guest post by Mark Cook
Batesville, Arkansas — In a breathtaking act of contempt for the people who pay their salaries, Independence County’s elected “servants” have just told 8,309 voters, a clear 63% majority, that their voices mean nothing.
Fourteen months after county voters overwhelmingly demanded hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots (Ordinance 2024-18), the Quorum Court voted on December 11, 2025 to repeal it with a two-thirds supermajority. Their reason? A Supreme Court decision that didn’t even exist when the petition was filed.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The same public officials who swore an oath to serve and protect the citizens have now ruled that the citizens’ explicit instructions are invalid because of a technicality that appeared after the fact. They are forcing electronic voting machines back down the throats of the very people who said, loudly and clearly, “We do not trust your machines.”
County Judge Kevin Jeffery and his fellow Justices of the Peace wrapped their betrayal in the language of constitutional piety: “We must uphold our Oath of Office.” Translation: “We must uphold our right to ignore you.”
The Arkansas Supreme Court’s ruling in Evans v. Harrison (October 2025) clarified filing deadlines for initiative petitions. The county’s petition was submitted a few days outside that window, a window that was not even enforced or clearly understood at the time. The clerk certified it. The people voted. The ordinance became law.
None of that matters now. The servants have spoken: the masters (the voters) were wrong!
Bryan Norris, who led the original petition drive and is now running for Secretary of State, correctly called it what it is: a naked power grab using a retroactive “legal technicality” to nullify the will of 63% of the county’s voters.
But the Quorum Court’s press release is even more revealing. Buried in the bureaucratic boilerplate is this chilling line:
“The Quorum Court concluded that… it had a duty to address the legal effect of that constitutional filing requirement and to act consistently with its oath to uphold the Constitution.”
In plain English:
“We have decided that your vote was never legitimate, so we are erasing it. And we’re doing it for your own good.”
They even declared an “emergency” so they could ram this repeal through faster, because 2026 is an election year and they simply cannot allow the rabble to have the secure ballots they demanded.
Meanwhile, the same officials are rolling out a shiny new “vote center” model for March 3, because nothing says “we respect your voice” like making sure every voter can be funneled through fewer, more easily controlled locations.
This is not a legal dispute. This is not a technicality. This is elected officials openly declaring that the consent of the governed is optional when it inconveniences them.
They work for us. They are paid by us. They swore to serve us.
Instead, they have chosen to enslave us, one unverifiable machine ballot at a time.
The message from Independence County’s public servants could not be clearer:
“You voted? Cute. Now shut up and scan your ballot like we tell you.”
Citizens, I wish it weren’t so, but we are heading to a very dark place. And the longer WE allow that to happen, the darker that place will be. Waiting until we get there is not in our best interest.