Some Oologah Voters Were Not Given A Chance To Vote

An election for the Board of Trustees in Oologah could have been decided by people who weren't given a chance to vote. Precinct workers didn't give city ballots to an entire neighborhood of voters who were eligible to vote.

Angie Buchanan went to her precinct at Harbor Church and was given just one ballot, for a school board election, when she should have also received a city ballot. She asked for it, and after precinct officials checked, she was given the proper ballot, but she worried that others didn't know.

"Those votes didn't count if they didn't know to ask," said Buchanan. "Even with the amount of voters we had yesterday, margins for the person who won and the person who didn't, for the town board it's only like 10, so it's significant when you're talking margins that small."

A total of 378 ballots were cast in one race, and 252 in the other. One of the races on the ballot was determined by 10 votes, the other by 13.

The bulk of the problem was in the Harbor Creek neighborhood which according to the election board, was left off their city maps, by mistake. They're working on getting it corrected quickly so the problem won't happen in the next election.

"According to our information in the registry, it didn't show they lived in the municipality," said Election Board Secretary Juline Dormandy.

She said her staff has not determined how many voters should have gotten city ballots but didn't, and now they're focused on the eight provisional ballots cast by people who insisted they were supposed to vote.

"We're looking them up, finding the mapping on them, we're going to the assessor and that's what we'll go by once we figure that out," said Dormady.

Candidates have the option of contesting the results, but otherwise, the provisional ballots will be counted Friday, and the results of the election will be certified, and final.