OKLAHOMA CITY — Post-election audits conducted of three elections held this year confirmed – again – the accuracy of Oklahoma’s voting system.
The State Election Board recently published the results of post-election tabulation audits for the Feb. 14, March 7, and April 4 elections – including an audit of election results in all 77 counties for State Question 820 held on March 7.
The post-election audits were conducted by county election board secretaries on May 22-25. Tabulation audits for the June 13 elections were conducted on June 21-23.
Post-election audits were open to the public and included a mix of Election Day, mail absentee, and early-voting ballots, State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said.
Each of the audits confirmed the accuracy of the certified election results. Ziriax also noted that two candidate-requested hand recounts were included in the April 4 audit report and provided additional verification of the consistency and accuracy of Oklahoma’s voting process.
Audited from the SQ 820 special election were ballots from one precinct in each of 61 counties, and mailed-in absentee and in-person absentee early-voting ballots in 16 other counties.
No errors were found during the post-election audits. The tallies from the audits ranged from 16 mail-in absentee ballots in Rogers Mills County and 17 in Cimarron County, 23 votes cast in a Cotton County precinct and 27 mail-in absentee ballots in Ellis County, to 906 early-voting ballots logged in Payne County and 660 votes cast on Election Day in a Creek County precinct.
SQ 820, which would have legalized recreational marijuana in the state, received 566,362 votes; it failed by a margin of 61.67% “no” to 38.33% “yes.”
“It is unfortunate that we continue to hear some outlandish claims that Oklahoma elections are being determined by computer algorithms, ‘phantom’ voters, and other such nonsense,” Ziriax said. “But the facts tell a different story: Oklahoma has one of the most accurate voting systems in the entire nation.”
Oklahoma has 1,982 voting precincts, according to Misha Mohr, the State Election Board’s public information officer.
The 2023 post-election audit reports and archived post-election audit reports are available on the State Election Board’s website.
Oklahoma began conducting post-election tabulation audits in 2022, in compliance with a measure enacted by the Oklahoma Legislature in 2019.
Post-election audit were performed on the Aug. 23 Runoff Primary Election and the Nov. 8 General Election last year. Forty-three counties were selected to conduct post-election audits of the Runoff Primary Election. All 77 counties conducted audits of the General Election, with 31 of those counties conducting two audits each.
Audits of the 2022 General Election confirmed the outcomes of the races that were examined. A total of 108 manual post-election tabulation audits were conducted, and 106 of them identified zero differences compared to the certified election results. Two of the audits identified minor differences compared to the certified election results; however, those would not have affected the outcome of the election, Ziriax said.