When Democracy Double-Dipped: The Arkansas Town That Elected One Mayor Twice in a Single Day
The Night Everything Went Sideways
Picture this: It's election night in Centerton, Arkansas, population 847, and the votes are being counted in the cramped back room of Murphy's General Store. The year is 1968, and like every other small Southern town, Centerton takes its local politics seriously. Maybe too seriously, as it turned out.
By 9 PM, election officials had some good news and some very confusing news for mayoral candidate Jim Hendricks. The good news? He'd won. The confusing news? Apparently, he'd won twice.
How to Win an Election You've Already Won
What happened in Centerton that November evening would make even the most seasoned election lawyer scratch their head. Due to a clerical mix-up that nobody fully understood until weeks later, the town had essentially run two parallel elections for the same office.
Here's where it gets weird: Centerton had recently redistricted, splitting the town into two precincts for the first time in its history. Precinct A voted at Murphy's General Store, while Precinct B cast their ballots at the volunteer fire station across town. Standard stuff, right?
Wrong. Somewhere in the bureaucratic shuffle, both precincts had been issued identical ballot serial numbers and what officials later discovered were completely separate voter rolls – some residents appeared on both lists.
The Double Count Disaster
As election night unfolded, something unprecedented happened. At Murphy's General Store, Precinct A's election judge tallied the votes and declared Jim Hendricks the winner with 127 votes to his opponent's 89. Case closed, or so they thought.
Meanwhile, across town at the fire station, Precinct B's officials were conducting their own count. When the dust settled, they too declared Jim Hendricks the winner – this time with 156 votes to 134.
Both precincts filed their official results with the county clerk that same night, creating a legal puzzle that would stump Arkansas election officials for weeks.
The Bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle
The next morning, county clerk Martha Sizemore arrived at her office to find two separate certificates of election, both declaring the same man mayor of the same town on the same day. Under Arkansas law, both documents appeared legally valid – they bore the proper signatures, seals, and had been filed within the required timeframe.
But here's the kicker: nobody could figure out which election was the "real" one. Had some voters cast ballots twice? Were there two separate elections? Was this even legal?
Sizemore called the Arkansas Secretary of State's office, who promptly passed the buck to the state attorney general, who suggested consulting the county attorney, who recommended forming a special review board.
Three Weeks of Democratic Chaos
For nearly a month, Centerton existed in a bizarre state of electoral limbo. Jim Hendricks had technically been elected mayor twice, but couldn't officially take office because nobody knew which election victory to certify.
The investigation revealed the full scope of the clerical comedy of errors. When Centerton split into two precincts, someone at the county level had mistakenly created two complete sets of election materials – including duplicate voter registration lists that overlapped by about 40%.
This meant that roughly 40 residents had appeared on both precinct rolls and were technically eligible to vote twice, though investigators found that only about a dozen actually had. Most voters, being honest folks, simply went to whichever polling place was closer to their home.
The Solomon-Like Solution
After three weeks of legal wrangling, Arkansas election officials reached a decision that was both logical and completely absurd: both elections were valid, but only one could stand.
They ruled that Precinct A's election at Murphy's General Store would be the official result, since it had been filed first – by exactly 23 minutes. Jim Hendricks was declared mayor based on his 127-89 victory, while his 156-134 win across town was ceremonially voided.
The decision satisfied exactly no one. Hendricks felt his larger margin of victory had been erased. His opponent argued that if they were throwing out votes, maybe they should throw out all of them and start over. The 40 residents who had voted twice faced potential fraud charges (which were ultimately dropped).
The Aftermath of Accidental Democracy
Jim Hendricks served as mayor of Centerton for the next four years, though he never quite lived down being "the mayor who got elected twice." The town immediately overhauled its election procedures, hired a professional election administrator, and created what locals jokingly called "the most foolproof voting system in Arkansas."
The incident became something of a legend in Arkansas political circles, often cited as an example of why election procedures matter – and why small-town democracy, for all its charm, probably shouldn't be run out of the back room of a general store.
Centerton's double election remains one of the most unusual electoral mishaps in American political history, proving that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. After all, in most places, winning once is hard enough.