A low-drama election
After much hue and cry about voting amid the COVID19 pandemic, last week's primary election in Oklahoma went as most elections do here — smoothly and without major incidents.
There were a few hiccups, but only a few. A reporter for the Tulsa World described it this way: “Peaceful, orderly and a nice reminder that there are plenty of people who take the act of casting a ballot seriously.”
A large number of Oklahomans chose to cast their ballot away from the polling place. County election boards sent a record number of absentee ballots, roughly 141,000, reflecting voters' concerns about catching or spreading the coronavirus.
Absentee balloting was the focus of a heated political fight this spring.
Progressive groups said Oklahoma's requirement that absentee ballots be notarized presented a “substantial obstacle” to those who didn't want to vote in person during the pandemic. The state Supreme Court granted a request that absentee voters be allowed to return their ballots with a signed declaration that they were qualified to vote and had marked their own ballot.
The Republican-controlled Legislature then approved a bill that reinstituted the notarization requirement, with a provision that during emergency declarations, absentee voters may forgo notarization and instead sign the ballots and include a photocopy of an ID.
That move displeased those seeking change, but the requirements didn't seem to faze most absentee voters. More than 99,000 returned their absentee ballots, which state Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax says was a higher return rate than a typical primary election but a lower return rate than is the norm for a general election.
Perhaps not surprisingly, registered Democrats asked for and returned absentee ballots by mail at a much higher rate than other voters.
And, although a record number of absentee ballots were distributed, “a large majority of votes were still cast on election day, as is the norm in our state,” Ziriax said.
The June 30 election included fewer polling locations than usual, because some regularly used sites (such as nursing homes) were unavailable due to the pandemic and because not as many poll workers were available. Yet there were no reports of major headaches. About 655,000 votes were cast; Oklahoma's registered voters number approximately 2.1 million.
State election officials collaborated with the OU Health Sciences Center to come up with in-person voting protocols, which included social distancing and disinfection. Ziriax's office strongly recommended that voters and poll workers wear masks. Those protocols will be reviewed ahead of the November general election.
Absentee voting is likely to play a sizable role on that day and in the August runoffs. But if last week is any indication, then those two elections will be fairly uneventful, as Oklahomans have come to expect.