Republican Bryan Norris challenged the Arkansas Secretary of State runoff election results from this year.

Norris specifically questioned the results in six counties. These included Saline, Baxter, White, Miller, Washington and Grant County. 

The reasoning, Norris and his team felt that many counties met their expectations for election integrity but also thought that others were not fulfilling the goal of election integrity.

“We want to know that Arkansas law is being applied properly,” Norris said. “One of my campaign pillars was election integrity … We know for a fact that Arkansans deserve better at the ballot box, and so when you have organizations and elected officials that taut that they’re number one for election integrity, will laws are only as good as they’re on the books; so let’s see it in practice.”

Regardless of Norris’ claims, the challenge was overturned and the results went through. 

According to Ballotpedia, Norris originally received a plurality of the votes getting 91,497 votes; however, he did not receive a majority of votes;

According to the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, a candidate must get a simple majority to win the primary election and become the party’s nominee.

Because Norris only won 34.3% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia, the election went into the runoff.

However, NBC News election statistics announced that Hammer won the election runoff with 40,876 votes compared to Norris’ 39,938.

Norris, while not believing that there was election interference, felt that there should be an ability for the state to more adequately check the results so that this was certain.

Norris was running against state Senator Kim Hammer, in the primaries earlier this year.

Like Norris, Hammer is also running off of election security with a page on his website dedicated to the issue.

Because of this, Hammer understood where Norris was coming from.

“They requested a recount, which was totally their right to do so,” Hammer said. “If it had fallen under the one percent margin it would have been … automatic, but because it was at … 1.2% he had to pay for it, so he requested it.”

Hammer reaffirmed the results of the election.

“I was there for the whole time,” Hammer said. “They did a complete recount. I came back exactly what the original count showed and so everything matched up 100%.”

This means that Hammer will go against the Democratic nominee Kelly Grappe, whose official website states that she is running for office to “protect the public’s trust, serve every county fairly, and make sure our democratic systems work for the people who rely on them.”

Both Hammer and Grappe will also go up against the Libertarian nominee for the position, Michael Pakko.

The position of secretary of state in Arkansas is an important one.

As secretary of state the either Hammer, Grappe or Pakko will help oversee state elections, work with Arkansas businesses and oversee the upkeep of the capital grounds and buildings.

According to the current secretary of state Cole Jester’s release of the election schedule, the general election Nov. 3 where citizens can vote on not only the secretary of state but also the Governor, members of the state and national Congress and more.

If anyone wants to vote in this election, the deadline to register to vote is Oct. 5.