Tulsa, OK -
Your vote is your voice, and it's up the election board to make sure it's heard. Tuesday night that meant working overtime. "A few hiccups. A couple of our precinct officials did not bring their voting devices back, and it had the memory stick in it which had the votes on it, said Tulsa County Election Board Assistant Secretary Shelley Boggs.
Boggs says the ballots were secure though. No problem there, but they needed those memory sticks, a new requirement thanks to a new system. Since the system's arrival, there has been one mock election, and three real deals. One of them pitted republican Katie Henke against democrat Dan Arthrell. It was a tight race with results that at different times had both winning. "The Arthrell race and Henke race some of that had to do with the equipment some of that had to do with precinct officials, procedures ,and we've addressed the procedures with precinct officials," explained Boggs.
This time Boggs say precincts workers simply forgot to turn in the machines which ate up time, and that's enough of an explanation for the republican and democratic parties. "My opinion is that if they have to take a little bit longer , I believe the speed is secondary and accuracy is number one," said Tulsa Republican Party Chair J. B. Alexander. " I hope it doesn't happen again, but if it does, under no circumstances do I think the system was geared to try to do something underhanded," Tulsa Democratic Party Chair Judy Eason McIntyre told Tulsa's Channel 8.
The Tulsa County Election Board hopes the fifth time's the charm. The next election will be a runoff election that will occur in August.
