CHICKASHA – Post-election audits have consistently shown that Oklahoma’s voting devices accurately count ballots, State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said July 17. The proof of that statement was reinforced in the mid-July audit of the June 16 election results in Grady County, where no mistakes were found.
The results of the manual audit of the votes tallied in Precinct 260025 in the County Treasurer’s contest between Republicans Carolyn Bowen and Brad Hollowell were identical to the certified results: Hollowell, 132; Bowen, 122.
Similarly, no mistakes were found in the manual count of the votes cast in Precinct 260009 in the U.S. Representative District 4 race between Democrats Jeff Pixley and Mitchell Jacob: Pixley, 48; Jacob, 51.
No errors were detected in the manual count of the votes cast in Precinct 260027 for Republican candidates for Governor. Jake A. Merrick garnered 38 votes; Gentner Drummond, 37; Chip Keating, 30; Mike Mazzei and Charles McCall, 21 each; Leisa Mitchell Haynes, 4; Jennifer Domenico, 2; and Kenneth Sturgell, 1.
The Oklahoma State Legislature in 2019 approved a measure authorizing the Secretary of the State Election Board to direct county election board secretaries to conduct post-election audits “for the purpose of maintaining the security of the election system by ensuring that voting devices and software used in a particular election correctly tabulated votes.”
The law defines a post-election audit as “a manual or electronic examination of a limited number of ballots by a secretary of a county election board or other authorized election officials following an election.” Post-election audits are conducted only at the direction of the Secretary of the State Election Board pursuant to the policies, rules and procedures developed by the Secretary.
By law, the outcome of a post-election audit cannot change or alter the certified election results of an election being audited.
“Oklahoma takes election security very seriously, and our state has excellent laws and procedures in place to help ensure the integrity of elections in our state,” Ziriax said last month.
This state’s election system is designed to ensure that Oklahoma voters feel confident each time they cast a ballot, he said. “We value election security and have worked with both state and federal partners for many years to ensure fair and secure elections here in our state. Additionally, our legislature has enacted laws specifically intended to proactively protect the integrity of our elections.”
Security features
Oklahoma employs many procedures and security features to ensure the safety of paper ballots, optical scan voting devices, and the validity of vote counts, Ziriax related. Those include:
•Under state law, Oklahoma’s uniform statewide voting system relies on paper ballots that are hand marked by voters and tabulated by accurate optical scan voting devices. This type of voting system has worked “exceptionally well in our state” for more than three decades, Ziriax said.
•Oklahoma’s voting devices do not have the capability to be networked or connected to the internet.
•Oklahoma conducts extensive testing of databases, voting devices, and ballots prior to each election.
•Voting devices and ballots are protected through a strict chain of custody, and it is a felony for any unauthorized person to access them.
•Voting devices are predefined for use in each precinct and are designed to reject counterfeit ballots.
•An anti-tampering digital signature is required at every step of the election process.
•Voting devices and election software are designed to detect and refuse tampering attempts. (It is a felony to tamper with any device, software, hardware, or other equipment used to conduct elections.)
•Each paper ballot has a unique identifier that can be read only once by a voting device.
•Each precinct has builtin bipartisan oversight with at least one precinct official from each of the state’s two largest recognized parties.
•County election board members or staff regularly canvass election results to ensure that printed vote totals from voting devices match the tabulated results.
•After each statewide election, county election boards conduct random post-election audits.
•Since 2025, access to Oklahoma’s publicly available voter registration list has been restricted under state law to U.S. citizens who are Oklahoma residents, reducing the risk of foreigners and out-ofstate bad actors obtaining it.
•Oklahoma law allows for the comparison of our state’s voter registration data with a state or federal database that maintains information regarding the citizenship of persons residing in this state. Oklahoma is authorized to use the SAVE system and driver license and state identification records to compare with voter registration records.