Some Arkansas voters got these seemingly fishy letters from Secretary of State Cole Jester’s office. No letterhead? No names? No date?

Nearly 1,300 Arkansas voters who were also registered in Alabama or Tennessee were sent undated form letters from the state lacking official letterhead telling them they may be removed from voter rolls if they didn’t respond within 30 days.

The Arkansas secretary of state’s office on Monday confirmed the letters were sent as part of its effort to verify voter information, but said the lack of an official letterhead or date was a clerical error.

The letters are part of the One State One Vote initiative, which created a partnership between Arkansas and neighboring states to ensure citizens aren’t registered to vote in more than one state.

“Fixing these duplicates is basic good governance to keep accurate records,” Samantha Boyd, spokesperson for Secretary of State Cole Jester’s office, said. “This proactive effort reflects Secretary Jester’s commitment to maintaining accurate, lawful voter rolls and ensuring problems are identified and addressed before they can undermine public confidence in the electoral process.”

Letter recipients were asked to choose where they wanted to remain registered and to indicate that they understood the form must be returned to their Arkansas county clerk or the secretary of state’s office in Alabama or Tennessee. The letter states recipients “may be subject to removal from the voter rolls in Arkansas” if a response is not received within 30 days of the date of the letter.

The undated letters were mailed on Jan. 13 and 14, according to Boyd, who said the 30-day deadline is more of a guideline to help expedite the information-gathering process. Only county clerks can remove someone from the rolls, not the secretary of state’s office, she said.

Faulkner County Clerk Margaret Darter said county clerks generally clean up voter rolls in odd-numbered years and they make multiple efforts to contact voters before removing them from the rolls.

“As a clerk, we’re out to protect our voters as much as we can,” said Darter, who also serves as president of the Arkansas Association of County Clerks. “We don’t want anyone criminally voting, but we’re also not out trying to make someone a criminal voter either.”

If someone who registers to vote in Arkansas indicates they were registered in another state, Darter said she would alert the other state that the voter needed to be removed from their rolls. However, postal and administrative errors could lead to duplicate registrations.

The Faulkner County Clerk’s office has received a few responses from letter recipients, but Darter said she wasn’t sure how many voters were affected in her county.

The secretary of state’s office will begin sending the list of duplicate voters they identified to county clerks this week, Boyd said.

“We would be cautious at this point not to remove anybody unless we’re certain that they need to be removed,” Darter said.

Arkansans can check their voter registration here.

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Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew DeMillo for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.