Reports surfaced during Tuesday’s Tulsa primary election that some voters were not allowed to vote. Minor media hyped, Facebook conspiracy rumors exploded and election officials began to investigate. Late Thursday, the Tulsa County Election Board released the following statement:
The County Election Board has looked at each precinct in the recent City of Tulsa election and have determined the issue to be confined to 10 precincts, not all 176. In those 10 precincts, 25 voters were not issued the City of Tulsa ballot.
When we received the first phone call regarding this issue, our staff immediately contacted each precinct located in the City of Tulsa.
While this should not have happened in any of the City of Tulsa precincts, it does not appear as severe as some media reports suggested.
This nonpartisan election was complicated in that it was being conducted at the same time as the closed primary Federal, State and County elections which were partisan.
Tulsa County is proud of our precinct officials. This was a complicated election with the many different ballots available at each precinct.
Tulsa County Election Board Secretary Patty Bryant said, “I regret that this occurred and apologize to any voter that was affected by this error. We are working with precinct officials to try to ensure that this sort of mistake does not happen in the future.”