By Mike W. Ray
Southwest Ledger
District Attorney Kyle Cabelka filed a petition last Friday seeking a new election in the Republican Comanche County sheriff’s election.
The petition was filed with the Comanche County District Court, and a copy of that document can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WS7P72mx5bmgPCWifuNvZ3nU0d2jdXM5/view
A copy of the document was delivered to the office of Comanche County Election Board Secretary Amy Sims “but we haven’t accepted it yet,” the Southwest Ledger was told at 4:20 p.m. Friday. “We’re waiting for some guidance from” the office of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond.
In a related matter, the Oklahoma State Election Board sent a team to Lawton last Thursday to examine records from the sheriff’s runoff race and reportedly discovered several irregularities.
The investigation was triggered by the comments of an unidentified man who called the local television station to report he is a Democrat but was nevertheless given a ballot for the Republican-only runoff between Michael Merritt and Andy Moon.
Cabelka’s petition asks the district court to deny certification of the election.
“I was shocked when I watched the KSWO news story about Comanche County citizens who were allowed to improperly vote in this election,” Cabelka wrote in a prepared statement. “That news story caused me to look further into the results of the runoff election. Based on what I have observed by conduct from local election officials that were at the precincts on August 27, the confusion from the Comanche County Election Board Secretary, and the conversations that I have had with representatives from the State Election Board, I now question the integrity of the runoff election as well as have little confidence in the election results.
In a letter sent to State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax, five southwest Oklahoma lawmakers wrote, “Given the importance of ensuring free and fair elections, we are deeply concerned that other ineligible voters may have received an incorrect ballot.” The legislators said “this clear breach of electoral protocol occurred despite at least one voter contacting the Comanche County Election Board regarding the incorrect ballot…”
The legislators were Reps. Trey Caldwell, Daniel Pae and Rande Worthen (all R-Lawton), Rep. Toni Hasenbeck (R-Elgin), and Sen. Dusty Deevers (R-Elgin).
Their concern wasn’t misplaced.
Apparently the caller wasn’t the only Democrat who voted in the GOP-only sheriff’s race.
Comanche County has 40 voting precincts. Caldwell told the Southwest Ledger that an examination of ballots cast in two precincts, 27 and 28sub, found that the number of ballots cast in the sheriff’s runoff was four more than the number of Republicans who signed in to vote that day.
Twelve Republicans voted at Precinct 28sub, but 15 ballots were counted in the sheriff’s race, Caldwell said. Similarly, the number of ballots cast in Precinct 27 in the sheriff’s race exceeded by one the number of Republicans who voted in that precinct, he said. Voters from both precincts cast their ballots at the same location – Great Plains Coliseum in Lawton – and received their ballots from the same precinct workers.
Also, at least one irregularity was discovered in Precinct 31, Cabelka reported.
All registered Republican voters in Comanche County were eligible to vote in the sheriff’s runoff, and only Republicans were eligible to vote in the Comanche County District 1 commissioner’s race.
In Lawton, all registered voters were eligible to vote in the mayor’s race and on the PROPEL 2040 sales tax extension. Other ballots were issued for the non-partisan Ward 1 and Ward 2 City Council races.
Sims acknowledged the distribution of an incorrect ballot on election day.
KSWO-TV reported Sims also said that once a ballot enters the system, there’s nothing they can do about it. “Ballots cannot be traced to any particular voter,” Misha Mohr, the State Election Board’s public information officer, told the Ledger.
Those six extra votes in the sheriff’s runoff didn’t make even a ripple in the outcome of that race. Merritt defeated Moon by 628 votes: 3,595 to 2,967.
However, the legislators cited a state law which decrees that voters may only vote using the primary ballot under the party in which they are registered; it provides that "no registered voter shall be permitted to vote in any Primary Election or Runoff Primary Election of any political party except the political party of which his registration form shows him to be a member…"
“The right to vote is a fundamental expression of our American freedoms, and it must be fiercely protected to ensure the integrity of the November 5 presidential election,” the legislators wrote in their letter. “We must guarantee that each voter's voice is safeguarded and that every aspect of our electoral process remains secure and trustworthy.”
SW Okla. legislators
ask Ziriax to ‘step in’
The five legislators asked Ziriax to “step in and ensure that a thorough review and audit is made of the situation and that appropriate action is taken if these allegations prove to be true… A transparent investigation is crucial to maintaining public trust in our electoral process.”
“Considering the current mood about election integrity, we need a third-party verification of whether this was an isolated incident,” Caldwell said.
Sims reported that a precinct worker who mistakenly gave the Democrat a ballot in the Republican sheriff’s runoff was “counseled.” However, the Ledger was told that the precinct worker is no longer affiliated with the county election board; if that report is accurate, it was unclear whether the poll worker was dismissed or resigned.
The State Election Board declined to discuss the disciplinary measure. “Any type of action taken to address a precinct official’s performance would be considered a personnel matter of the county election board,” Mohr told the Ledger.
Oklahoma poll workers receive training every two years. Topics covered include “violations of law, persons entitled to vote, ballot distribution, voting in primary elections, and routine procedures,” Mohr wrote.
Bad timing
of encomiums
Ironically, the Comanche County election snafu occurred one day after Ziriax announced that “recent independent reviews of Oklahoma’s election system have shown it to be safe and secure…” And it occurred two days before an eastern Oklahoma legislator commented on “the consistently high performance of the State of Oklahoma in election integrity.”
Ziriax announced Aug. 26 that post-election audits performed after Oklahoma’s statewide June primary elections “confirmed the accuracy of the state’s voting system with a 100% match of the certified election results.”
Ziriax also noted that recent independent reviews of Oklahoma’s election system have shown it to be safe and secure – including a Governor’s Task Force study and an analysis by the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency.
Meanwhile, state Rep. Jim Olsen (R-Roland) issued a press release Aug. 29 in which he reported that the Heritage Foundation – an activist American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. – rated Oklahoma’s “election integrity” No. 5 in the nation.
In the Comanche County election faux pas, the number of people who voted was not in question. Instead, Caldwell pointed out, the issue was members of the Democrat party being given ballots to vote in a closed Republican race.