Paper ballots, endorsements and “salty language” are some of the issues that have come to define the Republican primary for secretary of state.
With early voting beginning Tuesday, Bryan Norris and Kim Hammer are locked in a heated runoff battle to determine the GOP nominee for secretary of state and the likely front-runner to succeed incumbent Cole Jester.
Jester cannot run for secretary of state in 2026, as he was appointed to the position by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, filling a vacancy left by John Thurston, who resigned after being elected state treasurer. Under the Arkansas Constitution, appointees to elected constitutional offices are barred from running to succeed themselves in the same seat in the next election.
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Norris and Hammer finished just ahead of Miller County Judge Cathy Hardin Harrison to advance to the runoff.
The winner of the primary will face Democrat Kelly Grappe, of Rose Bud, and Libertarian Michael Pakko, of Roland, in the November general election.
The race is headed to a runoff on March 31 after none of the three candidates who ran in the March primary secured a majority of the votes.
Norris, who just edged out Hammer in the vote total for the March 3 primary, has tried to establish himself as the political outsider. He has pitched voters on support for paper ballots as a more secure voting method over machines and his plans to remove parking spots for lobbyists near the Capitol.
He also highlights his military experience, having served in the U.S. Army for 21 years. Now retired from the Army, Norris, of Batesville, is a project manager for the landscape equipment company Toro, according to his statement of financial interest report.
Norris declined a phone interview for this story and instead referred to a campaign news release responding to a “Coordinated Smear Campaign.”
“Bryan Norris is fighting for secure elections, hand-marked paper ballots, honest government, and generational wealth for Arkansas families — all in alignment with President Trump’s election-security agenda,” according to the March 16 release.
Hammer, a state senator from Benton, is asking Republican primary voters to look to his legislative record and experience, saying a steady hand is needed as secretary of state.
“I’ve got 16 years’ worth of experience (in) the Legislature, working with three different governors, and I think that experience will help me be qualified to go into the office, hit the ground running,” Hammer said during a recent phone interview. “And the learning curve will be minimal compared to what it would be for somebody that’s never served in the Legislature or one of the other (constitutional) offices.”
To clarify the contrast between the candidates, one has to go no further than their list of endorsements. Hammer has the support of Arkansas’ top Republicans, such as Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and Attorney General Tim Griffin.
Norris touts support from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Conway-based paper ballot advocate Conrad Reynolds and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
In the weeks since the primary, Norris has come under fire for profane and conspiratorial social media comments he made in recent years.
A screenshot of a November 2024 post Norris made on X shows him responding to Cotton, writing, “With all due respect, and from one combat veteran to another, … F*** You Tom!”
In another post, directed at former U.S. Senate candidate Amy McGrath, a Democrat from Kentucky, Norris wrote “B****, you need to be put in prison.”
Norris also authored X posts suggesting Israel was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In response to a post that stated Lee Harvey Oswald was behind the president’s killing, Norris wrote in March 2025, “Naw my guy…. It was LBJ + CIA + Israel.”
In a March 12 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Norris said he doesn’t remember writing the posts, but did admit to using what he called “salty language.”
The posts have prompted Jester — the current secretary of state, now running for state land commissioner — to call for Norris to drop out.
There are also at least two websites dedicated to highlighting Norris’ profane X posts. One of the websites, therealbryannorris.com, is funded by Arkansas Conservatives, an independent expenditure committee that lists Chris Caldwell, a senior adviser to Sanders’ reelection campaign, as its resident agent.
“What we are witnessing is not a debate. It is an evasion,” according to Norris’ campaign news release. “And here is the great irony: the old guard Republican insiders orchestrating these attacks are borrowing straight from the leftist playbook. Cancel culture. Selective outrage. Digging through old posts to manufacture a scandal because they cannot manufacture a winning argument.”
In response to Norris’ profane and conspiratorial social media posts, Hammer said, “Those are not my words and therefore they are not mine to explain.”
PAPER BALLOT AND PETITIONS
As the state’s top election official, Norris said he would make sweeping changes to how Arkansans vote.
While a paper ballot advocate, Norris said he wouldn’t necessarily do away with all voting machines — only those that fail to meet standards set out in executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.
Norris said if he is elected, voting machines that have foreign-made parts or don’t comply with U.S. Department of Defense standards on cybersecurity won’t be certified for use.
How much that would cost the state is unclear, as nearly every county in Arkansas uses voting machines.
“The voters in Arkansas do not have confidence in the process in which we vote right now and that’s evident in the voter turnout,” Norris said in a February interview.
Hammer said he opposes switching to paper ballots, saying Arkansas has one of the most secure election systems in the country, citing a scorecard from a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, that ranked Arkansas first in election integrity.
As for voting machines, Hammer said they are calibrated before elections and audited afterward, proving the current system works.
“I can’t tell you the last time that somebody claimed they lost or won a race based on the results that were produced by our current system,” Hammer said.
He takes credit for what he sees as Arkansas’ stellar record on voter security, pointing to legislation he sponsored that he said secured the state’s constitution from outside influence.
During the 2025 legislative session, Hammer sponsored a slate of laws aimed at further regulating citizens’ right to petition.
The petition process, whereby citizens can collect signatures to put a measure on the ballot, had become unduly influenced by out-of-state actors, Hammer concluded.
So the Benton Republican led the passage of five laws, which require a new set of regulations for petitioners to follow. Those include informing voters that petition fraud is a crime before they sign and requiring that voters read a measure’s legal summary before signing. Another law requires voters to show a photo ID before they are allowed to sign a petition.
In November, a federal judge in Fayetteville issued an order blocking the state from enforcing those laws, finding they likely infringe on citizens’ rights of political expression and association. The ruling has since been appealed.
Norris has called the legislation unconstitutional, “making it harder for Arkansas citizens to exercise their petition rights — cracking down on grassroots democracy itself.”
“I think it’s premature to criticize the bills until they run the full course through the court,” Hammer said.
OTHER DUTIES
One priority Hammer has, if elected, is to increase the number of volunteers and workers who help run elections in Arkansas.
To accomplish it, Hammer calls for reaching out to students, offering them college credit if they work the polls. He also said he wants to work with employers to make it easier for people to take time off from their jobs to work elections.
“It’s a real challenge to get people to the polls to work,” Hammer said. “And we have to be creative in opportunities for the young generation to get involved.”
For the secretary of state’s business office, often the first stop for any prospective entrepreneur, Hammer said he wants to speed up the time it takes to register a limited liability company, saying it should take no more than 24 hours.
Hammer said he also wants to boost Arkansas’ low voter turnout, pledging to travel the state in a campaign encouraging more voter participation.
In a February interview, Norris pledged to conduct a “DOGE-style audit” of the secretary of state’s business office, which would be modeled after the federal Department of Government Efficiency, established by Trump.
He said any regulations not found in law would be done away with.
Norris said that if elected, he would be Arkansas’ biggest recruiter for business and would actively campaign for companies to relocate to the Natural State.
He also said he would do away with any reserved parking for lobbyists and remove the doors from his office — a sign of the transparency he would bring as secretary of state.
