Kelly Grappe

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The Secretary of State’s office is a large statewide service organization. It is responsible for election administration and support, business and commercial services, public records, the initiative and referendum process, and stewardship of the State Capitol.

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Arkansas is one of only 16 states where citizens have both the initiative and referendum powers — the ability to propose laws and constitutional amendments and to challenge laws passed by the legislature. That right exists for a reason: the people are not supposed to have to ask their government for permission to have a voice in it. But in recent years, our legislature has passed law after law adding barriers to the initiative and referendum process. I’ve watched requirements become more complicated, technical mistakes carry enormous consequences, and ordinary citizens face a process increasingly difficult to navigate without significant money, lawyers and professional infrastructure.

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You don’t have to agree with what the people are proposing to defend their right to propose it.

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After the LEARNS Act, Kelly and neighbors organized referendum and initiative support—including a temporary Sherwood office for petition packets and notaries. Timeline and scope need campaign verification. Democracy starts local; citizen-led work stays volunteer-centered.

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Farming and a small market taught her that neglect and favoritism both have consequences you cannot market away—small operators feel every friction in fees, time, and paperwork, and the office should be built to reduce that drag without lowering standards.

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Earning confidence in a constitutional office is not a one-time ad buy. It is a series of visible decisions over years: how you treat small operators when the rules are confusing, how you answer reporters when the story is unflattering, and how you show up in counties that the political industry writes off. Kelly believes Arkansans are fair judges of character if you stop performing and start explaining—what you will do, what you will not do, and what the law already requires whether it is convenient or not.

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Limits of the office. These are the limits of the office: where a change belongs to the legislature or another agency, I will advocate, evaluate, or work with partners — not claim powers this office does not have.

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Kelly is not personally circulating petitions this year so there is no fair question of bias in how she would administer the office—but she believes in the process: if the people of Arkansas want the question on the ballot, they should get to vote. She also believes we should work to limit corporate and dark money in initiative politics—ideally keeping citizen-led work volunteer-centered so that money and paid interests do not, once again, outweigh people’s power and rights in a process meant to belong to the public.

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Civic work taught her that democracy is a skill—and that Arkansans will step up when someone meets them with training and respect, not a lecture from on high.

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When our systems are secure, we should be able to show people why. When something isn’t working, we should acknowledge it and fix it.

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I’m running because I believe government works best when the people understand it, can participate in it, and know the people entrusted with it remember who they work for.

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My answer starts with the law. The Secretary of State’s job is to administer Arkansas election law and support counties in carrying it out.

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Regardless of the lawful system a county uses, my responsibility is to make sure election officials have the training, resources and support they need to administer secure elections voters can trust.

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I want to establish clear checkpoints throughout the initiative and referendum process so sponsors know whether they have met the requirements at each stage before investing months of work and thousands of volunteer hours.

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I want the Secretary of State’s office to pay attention to the questions Arkansans are actually asking about our elections: Can a machine change my vote? What happens to my ballot after I cast it? How are voting machines tested? How are voter rolls maintained? What happens if equipment fails? How are results verified? Those questions deserve answers. We’ll regularly identify the questions and concerns we’re hearing from voters and create simple ways to answer them — through short videos, demonstrations, diagrams, public information and opportunities to see election processes firsthand. You ask. We’ll show you.

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The Secretary of State’s office should provide a clear roadmap from beginning to end: requirements, forms, deadlines, examples, checkpoints and the status of a petition as it moves through the process.

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I support Arkansas’s voter ID requirement. But a security measure only works well when voters understand it and eligible voters have a clear path to comply.

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And when legislation threatens to make this constitutional power unnecessarily harder for ordinary Arkansans to exercise, the Secretary of State should use the voice of the office to defend the process.

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I want clear information available online and through counties — including the optional social media and voter-education materials we provide to local officials.

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Secure elections and accessible elections are not competing goals. We should be committed to both.

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Our state motto, Regnat Populus — “The People Rule” — should be more than words on a seal. It should define how the Secretary of State serves the people of Arkansas. I’m running to take the politics out of this office, restore trust in our systems, and make the Secretary of State’s office work better for the people it belongs to.

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Trust cannot be demanded. It has to be earned.

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I want to lift up the hood on Arkansas elections and show people how our systems actually work — how votes are cast, protected, counted and verified, and why those systems are secure.

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That also means being willing to hear hard questions. When people have concerns, we should answer them with facts instead of dismissing them. And when we find a problem, we should say so, fix it and tell the public what we did.

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The Secretary of State is responsible for major functions of Arkansas government — including statewide election administration and support, business and commercial services, public and government records, the initiative and referendum process, and stewardship of the State Capitol.

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Support All 75 CountiesSee this part of My Plan →

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I will be a fierce advocate for Arkansas’s constitutional role in administering our elections. I will comply with federal law and work constructively with federal partners where appropriate, but I will oppose attempts to unnecessarily nationalize election administration or take legitimate decision-making authority away from Arkansas and our local election officials.

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If federal overreach threatens Arkansas’s lawful authority over our elections, I will hold the line.

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Kelly explains why she believes the Secretary of State’s office must remain accountable to the people it serves — clear, direct, and in her own words.

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Start with five people you know. Volunteer. Host Kelly. Or support the work. This campaign grows through relationships — one conversation at a time.

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I want to lift up the hood on Arkansas elections and show people how our systems actually work — from the machines and testing to the security measures, paper records, tabulation and verification.

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I get asked often where I stand on paper ballots versus voting machines.

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And we should listen to the people actually doing the work before we make those decisions.

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Counties shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel. When something works well in one Arkansas county, we should share it. When another state has developed a better practice, we should study it and decide whether it makes sense for Arkansas.

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I want Arkansans to have more opportunities to ask hard questions and see our election systems firsthand.

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I want us to build systems worthy of their trust — and then lift up the hood and let them see for themselves.

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The Secretary of State should make sure every Arkansan knows what forms of identification are accepted, what to do if they don’t have one, and where they can get the identification they need.

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Arkansas provides a path for eligible voters who need identification for voting purposes, and that information should be easy to find and consistently communicated across the state.

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I want to build a process that ordinary Arkansans and grassroots organizations can realistically navigate.

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The Secretary of State should be a fair administrator of the process, not a gatekeeper. That means more than putting instructions on a website.

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I won’t agree with every initiative Arkansans put forward. That’s irrelevant to the responsibility of the office.

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The rules should be applied consistently regardless of the issue, the organization behind it or the politics surrounding it.

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I want regular opportunities for county officials to tell us what’s working, what isn’t and what they need from the state. And I want that feedback to matter.

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We shouldn’t build a solution in Little Rock and then find out whether it works in all 75 counties. We should build it with them.

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I plan to spend meaningful time in the field — regularly visiting counties, sitting down with clerks and election officials, and hosting Secretary of State office days in communities across Arkansas.

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I want to see the systems where they’re actually being used, hear directly from the people doing the work and understand the challenges that may look very different from county to county.

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Some problems are difficult to see from behind a desk in Little Rock. I intend to go see them for myself.

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If we can build something once at the state level that saves 75 counties time and money, we should.

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Some of the best ideas will come from county clerks, election commissioners and staff who have spent years figuring out how to make elections work in their communities.

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I want the Secretary of State’s office to help find those ideas, recognize them and share them across Arkansas.

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Listen. Support. Share what works. Give people the tools to succeed. And never forget that the people closest to the work should have a voice in how the work gets done.

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Transparency shouldn’t mean information is technically public if you know where to look, who to ask, or which form to file. It should mean people can actually find and understand the information their government holds.

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I want the Secretary of State’s office to become a model for that kind of transparency.

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I want an efficient, accountable system for receiving and tracking requests from beginning to end. We should know when a request came in, where it is in the process, who is responsible for it and whether it was completed on time.

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Then I want us to use that information. If Arkansans are repeatedly requesting the same records, we should ask why we’re making them request those records at all.

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Information should be searchable, mobile-friendly, accessible and written so people can actually use it.

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I want to build a public transparency portal that makes that information easier to find and follow.

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If I expect counties, vendors and systems to be accountable, the Secretary of State’s office should be accountable too.

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I want to create a public SOS Performance Dashboard with meaningful measures of how well the office is serving Arkansans. That could include business filing turnaround times, FOIA response performance, county support requests and other service measures that help us identify where we’re doing well and where we need to improve.

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When something isn’t working well, I want to understand where it breaks down, why it breaks down and what we can do to make it better.

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I want to use that feedback and the information behind it to identify the breakpoints — then fix what we can.

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When an Arkansan registers through the DMV, information moves between state and local systems. I want to evaluate that entire process and identify unnecessary manual entry, duplication, delays and opportunities for systems to communicate more efficiently.

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Technology should reduce work and errors, not create another layer of complexity.

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I support Arkansas’s current absentee-voting framework. Arkansas does not have universal vote-by-mail, and changing who qualifies to vote absentee is a decision for the legislature. But administering the process well is the responsibility of election officials, and I believe we can look for ways to make that process more accessible while maintaining its security.

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Other states use technology that allows voters to track the status of their absentee ballot. I want to evaluate tools and best practices like that for Arkansas — not because another state does it, but because secure technology may give voters better information while reducing questions and administrative work for counties.

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Some improvements can be made administratively. Others will require technology investments, partnerships with other agencies or action by the General Assembly.

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I’ve spent my career in learning and development, building ways to take complicated information and make it practical and useful. I want to bring that experience to civic education across Arkansas.

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I want the Secretary of State’s office to create practical, nonpartisan resources that schools, libraries, counties and community organizations can use.

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Civic engagement isn’t only about knowing how government works. We also have to relearn how to listen to one another.

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I want to create regular civic dialogue sessions at the State Capitol where Arkansans with different backgrounds and viewpoints can come together — not to win an argument, but to understand one another better.

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I don’t believe our young people are apathetic. I’ve seen what happens when they’re given real responsibility, meaningful work and a reason to believe their voice matters.

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People shouldn’t have to be political insiders to understand what offices are available, whether they qualify, how filing works, what deadlines matter and where to begin.

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If we want better government, we need more people to see themselves as capable of serving in it.

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If we’re serious about increasing civic participation, we should measure it.

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I want to create an Arkansas Civic Engagement Scorecard that tracks progress in voter registration and voter participation, including participation across age groups.

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I want a particular focus on high schools and college campuses, where we have an opportunity to help young Arkansans establish the habit of civic participation early.

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And this shouldn’t only be about identifying gaps. When counties are doing an exceptional job registering voters, engaging young people or increasing participation, I want to recognize them, learn what they’re doing and share those practices with the rest of the state.

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I’ve worked with some of the largest companies in the country, and I’ve owned a small business where every hour and every dollar mattered. When you’re trying to run a business, government shouldn’t be another obstacle you have to figure out.

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The Secretary of State’s office is where thousands of Arkansas businesses interact with state government — forming a business, maintaining registrations and filings, searching records, and accessing other business services. Those processes should be clear, intuitive and built around the people using them. I want to evaluate Business Services the same way I would any other major process: from beginning to end and from the user’s point of view.

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Someone starting their first LLC shouldn’t have to understand the internal structure of the Secretary of State’s office to figure out what to do next.

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Organize information around what people are trying to accomplish: I want to start a business. I need to file an annual report. I need to make a change. I want to search for a business. I need help.

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Use clear steps and better navigation so people can get where they’re going without having to become experts in state government first.

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I want us measuring the things that tell us whether Business Services is actually improving: processing times, common errors, repeat contacts, customer questions and where people are struggling.

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Good government shouldn’t be measured by how many processes we have. It should be measured by how well those processes serve the people who have to use them.