Glitches on election night in Tulsa County

TULSA - A simple mistake by Tulsa County precinct officials during Tuesday night's primary election in Oklahoma could have led to a do-over of one of the election issues.

Precinct officials forgot to pass out ballots for a city question at a polling place in midtown Tulsa. Luckily the mistake was noticed right away.

Tulsa County Election Board secretary Patty Bryant says there were a few glitches on election night.
At a precinct in Brookside, she says officials didn't pass out city charter ballots. County commissioner John Smaligo pointed out the mistake.

"Fortunately the margin was large enough that it wouldn't have mattered, either way," Bryant said.

Otherwise, if it had been a close election, it could have caused a re-do.

But that wasn't all. Bryant says two precincts in north Tulsa forgot to turn in their machines at the end of the night. She says luckily, they had back-up paper ballots to scan.

"We were on top of it, and we recognized what was going on, and we took care of it," she said.

Then late night computer glitches at the state election board caused a delay in results. Bryant thinks the system was overloaded.

Final results came in just after 11 p.m.

"People sometimes think we're slow, but we're all about accuracy, we're not trying to be fast," Bryant said," we just want to be accurate, so that's what we do here."

Despite the issues, Bryant says the results are accurate.

"I would hope the voters would not have any worries. Because we've got an election staff here at the Tulsa County Election Board, and throughout the state as that goes," she said.
 
After ballot counting issues in April's special elections, officials say this one went smoother.