OKLAHOMA CITY -
More than a million Oklahoma voters cast their ballots yesterday with a big turnout at the polls in Oklahoma County.
More than 65% of
registered voters in the county cast their ballots, but the election didn't go off without a
few headaches and a possible fraud investigation.
News 9 heard from
a lot of viewers about the long lines at the polls on Tuesday. The election board
says part of what took so long was checking IDs under the new voter ID law.
The whole process
isn't over yet. Provisional ballots still have to be counted, and a possible
voter fraud investigation is underway.
Presidential
elections bring out more voters, and Tuesday night was no different in Oklahoma
County.
The state election board says there was a lot of confusion due to
redistricting, and some people didn't get to vote because they didn't show up
to the right polling place.
"We sent a new
voter ID card to every registered voter in the county, 400,000, and we got
80,000 back returned as ‘undeliverable.' Why is that? Because a voter moved and
didn't tell us. and we had people coming into our office at five minutes before
7:00 last night asking where to go vote," Oklahoma County Election Board
Secretary Doug Sanderson said.
A lot of the long
lines were due to poll workers checking IDs under the new the voter ID law.
"It definitely was
a complete, complete failure," Jay Kelly said.
The new law didn't keep someone else from voting under Jay Kelly's
name and address. The poll worker told Jay he'd already voted.
"So she suggested
that I sign and vote as someone else in that person's place instead," Kelly
says, "I told her I was really uncomfortable with that and didn't want to go to
jail."
"We've talked to two of our precinct officials. We're waiting to
talk to the inspector, at some point I'll talk to Mr. Kelly as well,"
Sanderson said.
While those with the election board are investigating that case,
they also have more than 1,700 provisional ballots to consider by the end of
the week. The board has to certify the election Friday.
The election board
will turn over its investigation to the district attorney's office.
News 9 is told part of
the delay in getting election results last night was due to a high number of
absentee ballots.
More than 65% of registered voters in the county cast their ballots, but the election didn't go off without a few headaches and a possible fraud investigation.
