OKLAHOMA CITY – A manual recount in the Republican primary election for Oklahoma County District Attorney started July 6 but may take several weeks to complete, County Election Board Secretary Doug Sanderson said July 5.
The reason can be attributed to upcoming elections and the coronavirus, he said.
“I lost six workers to COVID-19 over the July 4 weekend,” at a time when the staff will have to conduct a recount by hand of 53,997 ballots, Sanderson told Southwest Ledger.
In addition, ballots for the Aug. 23 runoff must be mailed to overseas military personnel 45 days prior to the election, and that deadline is July 8, Sanderson noted. “That’s about 600 ballots,” he said.
Also, approximately 17,000 county residents have requested absentee ballots for the runoff, he said, and those ballots must be mailed by the county election board no later than 30 days prior to the election.
“It’s going to be a nightmare, but we’ll get it done,” Sanderson said. “We may start counting ballots but have to step away temporarily to do something else. We’ll just have to regroup every day.”
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 June 28 election for D.A., the final 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%).
If Calvey had received 16 of the votes that instead were cast for his competitors, that would have put him over the halfway point at 50.0009% and he would have captured the GOP nomination outright.
He filed for a recount because, “It’s my observation that machines don’t always get it right,” he said afterward. His application for a recount is not a reflection on the integrity of the election, he said. “I just want an accurate count.”
The recount will cost $12,300 which Calvey has already paid, Misha Mohr, public information officer for the Oklahoma State Election Board, told the Ledger on July 5.
Calvey, 55, is a former state legislator who 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. He 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.
Geiger, 55, has served as a prosecutor in the Oklahoma County D.A.’s office for more than two decades.
Calvey noted that 56,786 ballots were counted in Oklahoma County in U.S. Sen. James Lankford’s Republican primary. His application for a recount is simply “a matter of due diligence,” Calvey said. “I just want to know whether those optical scanners undercounted” in the D.A.’s race.
Vicki Behenna, 63, who was a prosecutor for 25 years, bested Mark Myles, 65, for the Democratic nomination for Oklahoma County District Attorney. Of the 44,205 votes cast in the Democratic primary, Behenna received 28,491 of them (64.45%) to 15,714 votes (35.55%) for Myles.
The Republican nominee and Behenna will meet in the Nov. 8 general election.