Tulsa election board started calculations late
BY KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
11/07/12 at 4:16 AM
Election Day Photo Essay: See all the photographs taken by Multimedia Producer John Clanton throughout the day in Tulsa, chronicling what happened and the point of views of Tulsans of both parties.
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Original Print Headline: Tulsa County Election Board gets late start counting
Tuesday's voter turnout in Tulsa County was comparable to that in the 2008 presidential election, when 256,000 voters went to the polls, according to Tulsa County Election Board Secretary Patty Bryant.
This year, 347,000 Tulsa County residents were registered to vote in the election, and more than 226,000 votes had been counted in 259 of the 263 precincts reporting by 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The Election Board did not begin tabulating votes until about 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Bryant said workers had to prepare more than 500 official absentee ballots for military personnel and others who voted overseas so they could be run through the voting machines.
All absentee ballots have to be tabulated before other votes can be counted, Bryant said. She estimated that more than 20,000 people voted by absentee ballot.
The count also was delayed when voting machines in 14 precincts failed to print election result tapes.
Eventually, Election Board workers had to begin hand-counting ballots from 11 precincts late Tuesday. They expected the count to go on well into the night.
