A post-election audit of 36 races in 33 counties found no tabulation errors and only a few errors in the handling of ballots, a report released Monday by the Oklahoma State Election Board says.
The audit of results from the June 28 elections were the first conducted under a 2019 law and are intended as a system test, officials said. No election results could have been changed as a result of the audits.
The report also included summaries of three recounts from June 28 elections. The results of those recounts were previously announced.
“Post-election audits add an additional layer of transparency and security to Oklahoma elections, and election officials are thankful that the State Legislature enacted a law to allow them,” election board Secretary Paul Ziriax said in a press release. “Oklahoma has one of the most accurate and secure voting systems in the entire world. These post-election audits and the three recounts that followed the June 28 Primary Elections are the latest in a long line of evidence of that.”
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Conducted on Thursday, the audit involved a mix of manual and electronic recounts of a limited number of ballots from a variety of elections across the state.
For Tulsa County, the state election board designated manual recounts of Precinct 227 results in the Republican House District 11 primary and mail and in-person absentee ballots for Judicial District 14, Office 12.
Statewide, county election boards audited results for seven federal offices in 12 counties, eight state offices in 16 counties, three legislative offices in three counties, three county offices in three counties and two judicial offices in two counties.
Area races audited included Rogers County Precinct 1, Republican County treasurer primary; Muskogee County Precinct 33, Republican 2nd congressional district primary; Wagoner County Precinct 207, Republican 2nd congressional district primary; Creek County Precinct 142, Democratic U.S. Senate primary; and Washington County Precinct 23, Republican attorney general primary.
The audit found two cases of improperly handled ballots.
In Caddo County, a spoiled ballot was secured in the wrong container, but was not counted or included in the final tally.
In Osage County, one provisional ballot was incorrectly categorized as an Election Day vote instead of an in-person absentee vote. Again, officials said the mistake did not change the final tally.
The three recounts included two county commissioner primaries in which eight votes separated three candidates in McIntosh County and three votes separated two candidates in Nowata County. No vote counts changed as a result of those recounts.
In Oklahoma County, Republican district attorney candidate Kevin Calvey sought a recount in hopes of avoiding a runoff. The recount added two votes each to Calvey and two of his three opponents but had no material effect on the outcome.
Officials said the 2019 law was expected to be implemented in 2020 but was not because of the demands placed on election boards by COVID-19.
