OKLAHOMA CITY – Recounts conducted in July of votes cast in the June 28 primary were performed in Oklahoma, McIntosh and Nowata counties – and provided further proof of Oklahoma’s election integrity.
According to State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax, the results of a county commissioner race in McIntosh County and a county assessor race in Nowata County following hand recounts matched voting machine records exactly.
In Oklahoma County, a manual recount of more than 57,600 votes cast in the Republican primary for district attorney produced a grand total of six more votes shared equally among three of the four candidates.
In the campaign to succeed District Attorney David Prater, who announced he will retire after his term ends next January, Kevin Calvey was narrowly forced into a runoff with Wayland Gieger for the Republican nomination.
After all absentee, early voting and provisional ballots were counted in the GOP primary for D.A., the tally was 26,983 votes (49.97%) for Calvey and 12,552 for Gayland Gieger (23.25%). Jacqui Ford, 43, received 7,804 votes (14.45%) and Robert Gray, 40, received 6,658 votes (12.33%).
Calvey, an Oklahoma County commissioner and former state legislator, paid $12,300 for a recount. “It’s my observation that machines don’t always get it right,” he said afterward. His application for a recount was not a reflection on the integrity of the election, he said. “I just want an accurate count.”
After the manual recount, the final tally was raised by six votes: from 53,997 votes tabulated to 54,003. Calvey, Gieger and Gray each picked up two more votes.
That still left Calvey and Gieger in a runoff. Calvey’s final tally still remained at 49.97% of the total vote; Gieger, 23.25%; Gray, 12.33%; and Ford, 14.45%. If Calvey had received 17 more votes, that would have put him over the halfway point at 50.0009% and he would have captured the GOP nomination outright.
The recount also included 3,648 “under” votes and 17 “over” votes, Election Board records reflect.
“Over votes” happen when a voter makes a mark in more than one “target” area for a particular race. “For example, this might happen if a voter started to fill in the bubble for one candidate but then changed his/her mind and filled in a bubble for another candidate,” Misha Mohr, public information officer for the State Election Board said. The voting device may detect a valid mark for two candidates. “If it detects that two candidates were selected for one race, the vote in that race is cancelled since voters may select only one candidate," she noted. “Over votes” do not affect other races/issues on the ballot, she added.
“Under votes” happen when a voter chooses not to cast a vote for a particular race/issue or skips the race/issue on the ballot. “It is perfectly acceptable to leave a race/issue blank on a ballot,” Mohr said. The voting device will record only votes for those races/issues in which the voter participates for that election, she said.
During a recount, “over votes” and “under votes” must be examined “to ensure they were properly read,” Mohr said.
Calvey, 55, a former state Representative, voluntarily joined the Judge Advocate General’s staff during the Iraq War; as an Army captain he prosecuted terrorists between Jan. 28, 2007, and Jan. 27, 2008, he said. Calvey was elected Oklahoma County’s District 3 county commissioner and assumed the office in 2019; his four-year term ends next January. He also owns a real estate investment company.
Gieger, 55, has been a prosecutor in the Oklahoma County D.A.’s office for more than two decades.
Gray, 40, and Ford, 43, are defense attorneys.
The Gieger/Calvey runoff primary election is set for Aug. 23. The victor will face Democrat Vicki Behenna, a former federal prosecutor, in the Nov. 8 general election. The winner of the general election will take office in January.
After the recounts in July, Ziriax said he hoped they would help “dispel some of the misinformation” that Oklahoma election officials have been hearing since the 2020 general election. “These hand recounts are the latest proof that Oklahoma’s eScan voting devices accurately tabulate ballots,” he said. “Voters should avoid misinformation that claims otherwise.”
Voting irregularities in
2020 election: .0042%
Similarly, a mere fraction of issues was discovered among more than 1.5 million votes that were cast in Oklahoma in the 2020 general election.
The number of voting irregularities detected during the November 3, 2020, general election that were reported to the State Election Board totaled 66, Mohr said.
The Presidential election received the most votes in the 2020 general election: 1,560,699 votes in Oklahoma. Those 66 irregularities constituted .0042% of the total votes cast in that race – 42 ten-thousandths of 1 percent.
Only one case of voter fraud was detected in the 2020 general election: a woman who submitted an absentee ballot for her father 12 days after he died; she received a deferred 60-day county jail sentence, a $10 fine and $466.50 in court costs, which she paid promptly. A couple of other reports were instances in which absentee ballots were returned by persons other than the voters themselves, contrary to state law.
Virtually all of the other incidents involved voters who voted twice, Mohr said. “I should also add that many times, alleged ‘double voters’ are elderly citizens who don’t remember submitting their absentee ballots and show up at the polls on Election Day to vote.”