35th Secretary of State of Arkansas. Constitutional lawyer, lifelong Arkansan, husband, and new girl dad.
Arkansas Secretary of State
State Capitol
500 Woodlane Avenue, Suite 256
Little Rock, AR 72201
501-682-1010
Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester is a lifelong Arkansan and constitutional lawyer who has been involved in tackling many of Arkansas’s most pressing issues. He was appointed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on January 1, 2025 as the 35th Secretary of State.
Prior to his appointment, Secretary Jester served in Governor Sanders’ administration as Deputy Chief Legal Counsel, where he spearheaded efforts to stop the Chinese Communist Party from buying Arkansas farmland and worked to reduce hundreds of burdensome government regulations. He also oversaw litigation against Big Tech, focusing on its intentionally addictive designs.
Before joining the Governor’s Office, Secretary Jester worked for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. While attending the University of Virginia School of Law, he clerked for the firm of Friday, Eldridge, & Clark, worked for the United States Air Force, and argued criminal cases in Virginia district court. He also served as the Managing Editor of The Journal of Law and Politics, founded in 1983 by Justice Antonin Scalia.
Under Secretary Jester’s tenure as Secretary of State, Arkansas has moved from number eight to number one in the nation for election security. He is a proud husband to his wife, Elizabeth, and is a new girl dad to his daughter, Charlotte.
Replacing decades-old commercial-services systems with faster, cheaper, more reliable platforms — including automated business-name similarity checks for the BCS office.
Arkansas has moved from #8 to #1 in the nation for election security under Secretary Jester's tenure, including the Capitol Police K9 program and ongoing voter-roll integrity work.
Identifying narrow, high-leverage opportunities where AI can replace error-prone manual data entry — starting with the business-name similarity check that ~40 staff perform by hand today.
A single public portal across campaign finance, business entities, UCC filings, lobbyist reports, and statements of financial interest — searchable in one place for the first time.
See the full archive on the press & news page.
