State voting system is worth bragging about
THE 2000 presidential election and the infamous “hanging chads” in Florida spurred a federal push for election reform that focused on having states update their voting machines. Is a similar effort needed today?
Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, believes the answer is yes, following Russia’s attempts to meddle in the 2016 election and the likelihood that such efforts will continue. Lankford also believes other states could learn a thing or two from Oklahoma.
“I know we don’t brag on Oklahoma enough on some things, but we are way ahead of the curve on how we handle ballot integrity,” Lankford said this week during an interview with The Oklahoman’s editorial board.
Oklahoma has long used paper ballots that are marked by hand and then fed into optical scanning machines. This provides a hard copy of the vote, as well as an electronic tally. Importantly, every precinct in Oklahoma uses the same machines.
Following the 2000 election, Congress passed a bill providing states with funds to improve their systems. Oklahoma received about $26 million, and used a large chunk of that to upgrade to a newer model of optical scan machines. The new models allowed disabled Oklahomans to vote without assistance, and made it possible for county election boards to report their results online for the first time.
The original machines worked well, and the newer ones do too. Oklahoma has experienced none of the problems seen in other states — many of which use computerized machines that record ballots via a touch-screen or push-button mechanism.
Each state manages its own election system, and Lankford says he’s not advocating a move to a uniform, federally approved system. But he is working on legislation that would have states voluntarily set certain standards for ballot integrity.
“We’re trying to reinforce to states that they should have optical scanners and paper, like we do in Oklahoma,” Lankford said. “Oklahoma’s been ahead of the curve for 20 years. Many states are not at the level for elections that we are. The way we handle elections and the security of our ballot is impressive nationwide.”
Lankford serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has spent considerable time investigating Russia’s influence on the November election. There is no evidence Russia hacked into any voting machines or affected any ballots, Lankford said. However, Russia did try to get into the websites of secretaries of state and election boards, he said, and succeeded in accessing voter registration rolls in some states (Oklahoma was not among them).
This is one reason Lankford says a push to allow voting via the internet “should be chilling.”
After the 2000 debacle, “every state then started re-evaluating the integrity of their elections,” Lankford said. “I think we’re at that point again with the Russian meddling.”
If any states are interested, the folks at the state Election Board would surely be glad to answer any questions about Oklahoma’s voting system, which is user friendly, reliable and secure —and worth boasting about.