TULSA COUNTY, Okla. — The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office held a news conference Tuesday afternoon with the Tulsa County Election Board to discuss concerns regarding disbursement of city council ballots.
Tulsa County Election Board Secretary Gwen Freeman says only Precinct 77, The Espiritu Santo Episcopal Church near 21st and Memorial, was impacted, for only about 15 minutes.
This did NOT impact State ballots, this only impacted city council ballots that should have accompanied the State ballot.
“Obviously, I feel very, very horribly about the situation,” she says. “We train our precinct officials for a full day, we give them mountains and mountains of supporting documentations.”
Freeman says it doesn’t appear there was any malice in the error, with 19 Republicans, seven Democrats, four Independents and one Libertarian impacted.
She says poll workers were instructed to hand out two ballots.
The Tulsa County Election board received a call from a voter at 7:45 a.m. Freeman says by 8 a.m. the precinct was back to handing out two ballots and the workers at fault were removed from their positions.
“There was a sense of urgency here,” Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado says. “This is a process that people have to believe in. In terms of the voters, they have to have confidence that their vote counted today.”
Freeman says while they do know the names of the voters who didn’t get that second ballot, they only have addresses for those people, making it hard to get ahold of them in time to correct this before the polls close at 7 p.m.
Regalado says there are applicable charges for impeding the voter process, if that route is taken.
Candidates have until Friday at 5 p.m. to file an irregularity complaint, if they believe those votes could change the outcome of the election.
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