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When I served as a poll worker in June, I witnessed the judge & inspector deny a young, Black mother a provisional ballot b/c they felt like it took too long to do & that they don’t really count https://www.acluok.org/en/press-releases/aclu-oklahoma-urges-voters-poll-workers-call-election-protection-hotline-problems?fbclid=IwAR2hzFGb6bHjNJqtkKm3Qw3czXLJrDnAWtnsx7m_6VmOu9zUgMEyHNKn0uw
I also witnessed the judge issuing a ballot to a woman who didn’t have proper identification. By training, we should have given her a provisional ballot - but again, they didn’t want to. When a colleague and I brought up concern, they said they’ve been doing this for 20 years.
I documented these acts of voter suppression in a letter to Secretaries Sanderson and Ziriax. Instead of the Oklahoma County Election Board having a conversation with us about the experiences documented in the letter, an employee called and chastised me in the most unprofessional
and angry way for writing the letter. Even after elected leaders reached out to the OK County Election Board, they refused to meet with us. They did conduct a biased investigation where they only documented the responses of two of the poll workers and sent it to @OKelections
This reveals that County Election Boards lack processes where poll workers and voters can document experiences. For OK County, if you put something in writing, qualified and trained poll workers run the risk of being bullied and barred from being poll workers.
Oklahoma has one of the strongest election systems in the country. It should also strengthen its internal systems to ensure poll workers are protected, not punished, for doing the right thing.
