Candidate for US Senate sues after his name on ballot reads 'Jack' instead of 'Jake'

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — U.S. Senate candidate Jake Bequette filed a lawsuit Tuesday with the Pulaski County Circuit Court against the Arkansas Secretary of State, Arkansas State of Election Commissioners, and Craighead County Election Commissioners.

Bequette said the lawsuit is due to a misspelling of his name in two counties that election officials knew existed but failed to correct.

Bequette said constituents reached out to his campaign office after they noticed his name on Craighead County ballots listed his name as "Jack Bequette" instead of "Jake Bequette."

"Not only did they not notify me, they didn’t notify the voting public," said Bequette. "They didn’t notify the polling locations in these various counties and they tried to sweep it under the rug."

Bequette said he immediately took action and contacted the Craighead County Elections Commissioner, in a conversation he has made public on his Twitter, to ask why his name was misspelled.

"They just admitted to us that the Arkansas Secretary of State's office and the Arkansas Election Commission knew as late as April 28 at least two weeks ago that my name was going to be wrong," Bequette said. "They said they can’t even correct this error because the voting machines are controlled by an out of state company headquartered in Omaha Nebraska."

Channel 7 reached out to Craighead County for a statement and they said they were waiting on review from their attorneys.

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston released a statement:

I am disappointed that Craighead County failed to correct the error we identified and notified them of concerning the misspelling of Mr. Jake Bequette’s name. I can relate to Mr. Bequette’s frustration as a similar failure occurred to me in another county in the 2018 General Election. After candidate filing, my office sent a certified list of candidates to each county and Mr. Jake Bequette’s name was correct on that certification. An error was made by the county during the preparation of the ballots. We discovered the misspelling of Mr. Bequette’s first name on April 28th and immediately contacted Craighead County to alert them of their mistake. We strongly advised them to correct the ballot as there was still ample time.

We also alerted the county that Arkansas code requires a county to hold a public meeting to explain the error, give a solution to the error, or explain why the error can’t be fixed. The county failed to comply in both cases. The same mistake also took place in Phillips County. We discovered that error on May 6th and Phillips County is working to rectify the situation.

I have instructed the Director of the State Board of Election Commissioners to reach out to Mr. Bequette to inform him of the formal complaint process.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge also released a statement:

Election integrity is of the utmost importance to me and we must ensure fair and accurate elections. My office is hopeful that a mutual resolution can be reached by all parties in the pending litigation. Candidates running for office deserve to have their names spelled correctly on the ballots and local election commissions should correct these errors in a timely manner.