Leon Wilson of Tulsa votes at the Mount Zion Baptist Church on Tuesday. The election was Tulsa's first nonpartisan mayoral election. CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World
The city of Tulsa's first nonpartisan mayoral election didn't start off well for the Tulsa County Election Board.
At least not at Precinct 117 at Jenks East Intermediate School, where a reported eight people were informed by poll workers early in the day that their names were not on the list of registered voters.
In fact, their names were on the list - precinct workers had simply not looked in the right place to find them.
"We had to call out to the precinct and tell the officials what page number to find the voters," said Assistant Election Board Secretary Shelly Boggs. "I have no idea why the names were not able to be found the first time."
Boggs said the voters were offered provisional ballots and that some declined the offer. Eventually, the Election Board was able to contact the affected voters and explain what had happened.
"Most everybody went back to the polling stations," Boggs said.
The problem should never have occurred, she said.
"We went over instructions with each (precinct) inspector one on one as well as the precinct judge one on one," Boggs said.
Road construction hindered voter access at three polling stations Tuesday morning: Precinct 25 at Maxwell Park Library, 1313 N. Canton Ave.; Precincts 124 and 127 at Aberdeen Heights Assisted Living, 7220 S. Yale Ave.; and Precinct 460 at Tulsa Tech Center Southeast Campus, 4600 S. Olive Ave. in Broken Arrow.
The Tulsa Tech polling place was for the Tulsa County Commission District 3 special Republican primary.
The issues were quickly resolved at Maxwell Park Library and Aberdeen Heights. The Election Board sent out a press release late in the morning advising those voting at the Tulsa Tech Center to use the Olive Avenue entrance.
Nine election machines were replaced during the day. The voting device service calls are about average for this size of election, Boggs said.
With vote counts coming in from hundreds of precincts Tuesday night, Boggs said, she expected a glitch or two in the reporting process.
"I anticipate, just because we have 230 precincts open, that there will be a few - when we're closing down the polls - that we will have to deal with," she said. "That's typical."
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
Kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Election goes off with some hitches
