At least three poll workers in Tulsa County’s Precinct 77 were relieved of their duties Tuesday after authorities received reports that they were not handing out city council ballots to certain voters, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado said in a news conference.
The Oklahoma county sheriff said he received video with allegations that poll workers were not giving the city council ballot to Republican voters on Tuesday morning and that “they were only being given to Democrats, Independents and Libertarians.”
The Tulsa County Election Board received a report about the incident at roughly 7:45 a.m. local time, contacted poll workers to instruct them they were supposed to give city council ballots along with the state ballots to voters and “they began handing out the city council ballots … at 8 a.m.,” said Gwen Freeman, the election board secretary. The poll workers were relieved of their duties and new poll workers were assigned, Freeman said. A total of about 30 to 40 people who voted in the morning were impacted, Freeman said.
“We sincerely hope this does not have any significant effect on the outcome of this election,” Freeman said. “But if it’s a number of ballots that could potentially affect the outcome of the election, then the appropriate remedy would be for the affected candidate to file an irregularity by 5 p.m. on Friday.”
Detectives interviewed the poll workers at the precinct and confirmed the city council ballots were only being handed out to Democrat and Independent voters Tuesday morning, the sheriff said. The voters who were denied a city council ballot include 19 Republicans, seven Democrats, four Independents and one Libertarian, Freeman said. Poll workers cannot determine a voter’s party affiliation unless they ask, “which is the irregularity and where the problem exists. And that is what happened,” the sheriff said.
The poll workers relieved of their duties included one Republican and two Democrats, among them the polling judge who was in charge of giving other poll workers instructions, Regalado added.
One of the poll workers said they were aware of the mistake but said they were following the orders of the polling judge who also confirmed the mistake, the sheriff said. But poll workers all receive training and are required to sign paperwork confirming they understand the rules of the voting process, Regalado said.
“The information that we have received does indicate that there [were] voter irregularities, we … are in the process of putting together this investigation to hand to the district attorney’s office for consideration of charges,” the sheriff said. Those charges could potentially be impeding the voting process and/or intentionally impeding the voting process by fraudulent measures, he said. “That will be up to the district attorney to decide which charges are going to be filed, if any at all.”