Paul Ziriax
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Election Board needs a supplemental appropriation of $850,000 for the March 7 statewide special election on State Question 820, which would legalize recreational marijuana.
“This will be the third statewide election conducted in Fiscal Year 2023,” which started July 1, State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax reminded legislative budget writers. The first was the runoff primary last August, and the second was the general election in November.
The full cost of conducting a third statewide election “cannot be absorbed within the State Election Board’s regular appropriation for this fiscal year,” Ziriax wrote in a Dec. 5 letter to Rep. Kevin Wallace and Sen. Roger Thompson, chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees. The Legislature appropriated $9,866,548 to the State Election Board for FY 2023, ledgers reflect.
Ziriax estimated the cost of the special election at approximately $1.2 million to $1.3 million. Outlays include ballot printing, pay and mileage for precinct officials and absentee voting boards, meetings of the State Election Board and county election boards, election supplies, overtime for State Election Board staff and other associated expenses, he said.
The Election Board’s contract printer will use emergency stock of ballot paper procured with funds the Legislature previously appropriated, Ziriax said, “which will result in some savings on ballot printing costs.”
The Election Board also has approximately $310,000 remaining from a $460,000 appropriation last year for the purchase of ballot paper, Ziriax said.
Ballot paper is “in very high demand and low supply,” said Misha Mohr, public information officer for the State Election Board.
Ziriax requested authorization to spend the $310,000 balance “for the conduct of the March 7 election.”
Using the previously purchased ballot paper and the … unexpended funds from last year, “[W]e believe a supplemental appropriation of $850,000 will be sufficient” to finance the special election, Ziriax said.
Election Board expenditures from the bulk of its appropriation for FY 2023 include:
• $40,000 in additional funding to provide an extra day of early voting for presidential elections, per instructions from the Legislature in House Bill 2663, enacted in 2021;
• $82,000 to increase salaries for county election board secretaries, as mandated by the Legislature in Senate Bill 1130, enacted in 2018;
• $900,000 to ensure the Election Board had adequate funding for the August 2022 statewide runoff primary;
• $125,000 for an anticipated cost increase in the volume of printed election materials;
• $250,000 for a State Question Recount Revolving Fund the Legislature established in 2021;
• And $102,000 for a cyber navigator, an individual who will “provide guidance for and assist in implementing policies and procedures” in the state and county election boards “to help mitigate the risk of cyber threats.”
In order to have sufficient funds for the March 7 election, the requested supplemental appropriation “will be needed as early as possible” in February, the Election Board secretary reported.
The first legislative day of the first regular session of the 59th Legislature is Feb. 6.
The State Election Board has accumulated funds from federal election grants, but it would be illegal for those monies to be used for “ordinary expenses such as those associated with conducting an election,” Ziriax said.
He also informed state budget writers that the State Election Board’s expenses for the March 7 special election do not include costs that “must be borne by county election boards across the state …” Those include postage for absentee ballots, fees for polling sites, overtime pay for county employees, hiring part-time employees and the county’s share of precinct officials’ pay.
Funding for those expenses must be provided to county election boards by each county’s government, Ziriax noted.