Oklahoma
Ballot Security
What Politicians Say
After some Oklahoma voters waited for hours to vote early in the 2020 election, state lawmakers added a fourth day of early voting in presidential elections and congressional midterms starting in 2022.
That leaves the state still with one of the shortest early voting periods in the country, well below the average of 23 days.
The state has made only minor changes to election law since 2020, changing deadlines and adding new requirements for local elections administrators.
One new law passed in 2021 bars the governor or any other local or state officials from agreeing to change any election procedures in order to settle a lawsuit from a voting rights group.
In the last 20 years, Oklahoma has consistently had the worst voter turnout in the US.
According to statistics from University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, the state’s turnout rate among all people eligible to vote has been the lowest among US states since he began tracking the data in 2000.
Ease of Voting
A 2021 law expanded the deadline for local elections administrators to receive a mail ballot application from one week to three weeks before the election.
The change came after the US Postal Service warned states that late deadlines for mail ballot requests may not leave postal workers enough time to deliver them.
Another new law in 2021 requires voters requesting a mail-in ballot online to prove their identity with their name, birth date and either a driver’s license number, other state ID number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Ballot Security
A 2021 law requires that local elections administrators remove dead voters from the rolls within 30 days of receiving a list from the state. Another requires they track whether each voter cast a ballot by mail, during early voting or on Election Day.
Another 2021 law requires the State Election Board to check the voter rolls each year and notify local prosecutors to investigate if more than 10 people are registered at a single address. Nursing homes, apartment complexes and military bases are exempt.
The legislature also passed a law in 2021 that would allow it to join the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit that helps states see when a voter has moved or registered to vote in another state, but it has not yet joined.
Another 2021 law bans private donations to run elections, such as the grants local elections administrators asked for and received from Meta Platforms Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg in 2020.
Read More: Zuckerberg’s Election Aid Spurs GOP Drive in 30 States to Ban It
How Politicians Responded to the 2020 Election
Republican Governor Kevin Stitt was among the prominent Republicans who publicly acknowledged that Trump had lost shortly after the election, but he has remained quiet on the issue since then and endorsed a statewide candidate who has said it was stolen.
Then-Attorney General Mike Hunter, a former Oklahoma secretary of state, signed on to the Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the election. He resigned in 2021.
US Senator James Lankford signed a joint statement with US Senator Ted Cruz citing “unprecedented allegations” of voter fraud and planned to object to certification but changed his mind after the Capitol attacks.
All five of Oklahoma’s Republican US representatives objected to the certification of Biden electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Two also signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit.