2020 OK Engaged Election Night; OK Engaged Live 2C

And welcome back to Oklahoma engaged alive voice of the voter here on KGOU. Once again joining you each Monday from one to two on in October leading up to the election this fall where we're joined by reporters by analysts and by your hosts myself KGOU news managing editor Logan Layden and general manager Dick prior so far today we've heard from Catherine Swinney and Quentin Chandler state impact reporters on some of the state questions that voters will be facing here in a few weeks as well as Paul Zurich's with a Dick prior to discuss some of the sort of a details of how to vote which is different this year because of many reasons including the COVID-19 pandemic once again you can join the conversation by calling 405 325 KGOU or engaging us online Oklahoma engaged it's okay engaged is the hashtag okay engaged also news at KGOU.org via email or on KGOU's

Facebook and Twitter pages we're back for our final segment this afternoon Paul Zurich still with us and Dick prior as well. Thanks Logan and again we want to remind listeners that we are streaming the audio of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing on our website KGOU.org and we will be doing that every day this week and we'll also be carrying live coverage of the hearing over the air on KGOU during the morning hours through Friday and again our guest is Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Zurich Paul I want to digress a little bit away from move away from the mechanics of voting and ask you some questions we've received about other aspects of the election and voting this year and one of the questions it's come up recently is poll watching what are the rules about poll watchers who are they and how does that work. Well I want to stress that Oklahoma law does provide

for limited poll watching now under under our law a poll watcher is someone who is is appointed by a recognized political party or a political candidate who is on the ballot and those are people who register with the county election board secretary and they receive a basically a commission and kind of a badge and but they're not at the polling place during the day. It's very limited what these poll watchers are able to do they can go around 6.30 in the morning before the polls open and they can watch the voting device be turned on and confirm that there aren't any ballots already in the ballot bin they can confirm that the zero tape which shows that the machine has zero votes cast on it up to that point and then they have to leave and then after the polls close so after 7 p.m. they can come down and come back and similarly watch the machine as it's as it's having its totals tape printed

and as it's being shut down for the day but that's really all it is now during the day and I want to tell you this this isn't anything new every major election it seems like you know there's some do gooders out there who want to show up and quote unquote help at the at polling places and they're you know they're on the lookout they think for suppression or fraud or or I don't know you'd have to ask them what they're really looking for but that is actually a crime in Oklahoma to be within 50 feet of the ballot box or inside the election enclosure where voters are checking in and being issued ballots and voting ballots and where the voting device is it's a crime to be to be there during an election unless you're a voter or an election official so you know that that's something if you think you're just going to mosey on around town and and pop in the polling place after polling place and and observe no you're not because in order to protect the integrity of the election process that's not allowed again there are poll watchers they are officially commissioned

but they only watch the opening and closing of the polls all right you're talking about electioneering when you're talking about people being in those enclosed spaces and close to the polling area in terms of electioneering helping helping people make up their mind maybe that's their intent our voters allowed to wear campaign buttons apparel hats or carry signs while they're waiting to vote or voting well electioneering is it's very easy to understand if you're advocating for or against a person or issue that is on the ballot that you're precinct then that is known as electioneering and it's against the law on the state of Oklahoma and that actually is a criminal act and and if you're doing that within a you know 300 feet of the ballot box that's actually a misdemeanor that could land you up to a year in the county jail and a ten thousand dollar fine so it's not something you want to do but if you're wearing a hat or a button holding a sign whatever it is of wearing

a t-shirt that is advocating for or against something or someone who is on that ballot you're not allowed to do that when you go to the polls and you know they're the reason that is in place is to make sure that no one is being influenced or intimidated by others who are around them while the voting process is going on. There are a couple of other questions related to the polling area are social distancing and masking required in the line and at the polling place where you cast your vote. That is a great question we we have worked with the OU Health Sciences Center to develop some in-person safety protocols for use during the pandemic and you can read those on our website elections.ok.gov if you go to our homepage right at the very top it says learn more about COVID-19 in the 2020 elections click that link and there's a lot of information for you but one of the things early on on that list are the protocols we developed with

the OU Health Sciences Center. Social distancing yes that's required. We have disinfection protocols we have we have provided PPE to all poll workers we have hand sanitizer for poll workers and voters. There's regular cleaning and disinfection that goes on and as the state election board secretary I strongly recommend that every voter who goes to the poll wears a mask. Now we can't turn someone away for failing to wear a mask so nobody's going to be denied the right to vote for failing to wear a mask but in my opinion it's just it's a matter of politeness if nothing else if you're not concerned about protecting yourself by wearing a mask at least be thinking about those around you the poll workers and other voters. It doesn't take that long to vote so wait a few minutes in line cast your ballot and move along and then if you don't want to wear your mask the rest of the day but I strongly recommend

that you do if you go vote. We're talking to state election board secretary Paul Zurich and Paul a related question of sorts are guns allowed in line and in the voting area. Again another good question and the answer is it depends because if if it is an official government building it's of course against the law to carry a firearm so if you're going say inside your county election board during early voting or if it's a municipal center that's that's a polling place on election day yes the same laws regarding firearms in those public buildings would be in effect if it's a private location then it really tends to depend more on the owner of the facility or the person or group that controls the facility as to whether they allow firearms or not but in terms of a blanket rule for every polling place that doesn't exist if it's an official government building or public building firearms

are not allowed under current law and if if it's a privately owned facility then it's up to the owners and a natural follow up to that is likely this one and that is what should voters do if they feel unsafe because of the the COVID precautions or lack thereof or if they feel intimidated while they are preparing to vote. Well voter intimidation is a very serious crime and certainly if someone is not feeling comfortable or feeling intimidated my recommendation is the first thing you want to do is find the precinct inspector that's the person that's in charge of the precinct and notify them if you can't find the precinct inspector or don't get a satisfactory answer there contact your county election board and they will they will help help you okay very good do you still need poll workers do counties still need people to work at the polls on election day you know I think what I would say is it depends on the county I've heard that there has been

such an outpouring especially in some of our more populated counties there's been such an outpouring of people wishing to volunteer that in some cases they haven't even been able to respond to everyone who's asking if they can help so but that's a good thing but what I think is across the state we will have an adequate number of poll workers but if you're interested in doing that this time or maybe in the future of course contact your county election board and they can walk you through the process of how to do that and there's also on our website I should mention there's a on the homepage of elections.ok.gov you can click on the learn more about being a poll worker and learn about what a poll worker is and what the responsibilities are to see if you're interested in doing that and you can find that on the state election board homepage. You're listening to Oklahoma engage live voice of the voter on KGOU Paul Zurich state election board secretary will be with us for just a few more minutes and I want to shift before we take any calls here and that is again remember the number to call is 405-325-5468

that's 325 KGOU and a series of questions that we receive from listeners concern the internet and I'll read the question one area of concern that has been in the news is that some states have systems that are connected to the internet at some point in the process does Oklahoma do that and I'm sure what they're asking about is the that chain of custody that you're talking about and how secure is it? In Oklahoma we do not connect the voting devices ever to the internet those are never connected to the internet the computers that are used to cally the results and to create the election databases are never connected to the internet the election results are not transmitted over the open internet those are transmitted through a secure VPN that we actually worked with one net to set up so what I would say is if you're concerned about Oklahoma's voting

devices being connected to the internet the answers no and it's true there are some voting systems where when the polls close on election night that voting device will actually connect to the internet and transmit results back to their county election office that doesn't happen here those are physically transported after being secured for the evening and taken to the county election board and then they get their their key out and unlock the lock and actually remove the it's really looks very similar to a thumb drive they remove that and then that's what contains the voting results. In 2016 foreign hackers tried to get into voting systems and voting registration lists in 21 states including Oklahoma did the election board have to make changes to secure its system and are you seeing any anything that would indicate a concern this year. Well it being being prepared for you know cyber attacks is something that election officials

and really I mean everyone in every day life should be should be concerned about. Thankfully there's there's nothing that happened in 2016 that was related to actual cast votes or changing of those and here in Oklahoma there was no penetration I often give the example that that you know when you hear that Oklahoma was quote unquote targeted what that really means is that the you know our election system was locked inside a safe that was locked inside a house and you had you had some folks kind of walk into the perimeter of the house trying to look for open windows and unlocked unlock doors and couldn't find any and so it but since 2016 we have worked to further enhance our cyber security program in fact we we work directly with the state cyber command we have one of their cyber security specialists embedded with the state election board and and we also have an election security group that includes a number of state and federal partners and we all work together to make sure that the integrity of our elections is protected.

Another question when can poll workers actually start counting ballots. Poll workers don't count ballots are we are we referring to absentee votes perhaps. I think that may be what the question is getting at. Yeah the poll workers just issue your ballot and it's the voting device that counts the ballot. So county election boards can you know the default position under the law is that they can count or scan the absentee ballots on election day but with the permission of the state election board secretary and I've granted this to all 77 counties with my permission they can begin that process earlier and I'll tell you as of about noon today there have been more than 293,000 absentee ballots sent and over 106,000 that have been returned to county election board so it's a good thing they're not waiting to election day to start this but it's actually ongoing in several counties now they will examine the affidavits and determine which ones are eligible to be counted and then those will be scanned and

then the scan ballots are secured with the county sheriff along with along with the voting devices and the media that we're used to scan those but it's actually happening now and that happens during public meetings of county election board so if you're interested when your county election board might be meeting to do those things you can contact them and find out. Thank you Paul another listener question how late can polling places stay open on the night of the general election polls close at seven but when can you how long can you continue to vote? Well the polls close at seven but if you're in line at seven o'clock you know before the clock strike seven so to speak you get to vote so they will they will keep processing voters and issuing ballots until every person who was in line at seven o'clock as processed and you know I've seen in some elections that can take you know maybe another 30 minutes or an hour and in some larger precincts if you have a late a late last minute developing

line so to speak but as long as you're in line before seven o'clock you'll get to vote when the if you're in line when the polls close at seven they will stay open late enough for you to get to cast your ballot. Here's a question Paul for those of us that follow elections closely including news media and that is the first the first ballots that come out the first vote totals that come out can we assume that those are mail-in ballots or is there just no particular order to that? Well when you when you watch the returns on the state election board website we actually have them broken broken out by vote type so you can you can see which ones are the mail absentee you can see which ones are the early voting and which ones are election day typically your your early voting and your mail absentees are the first ones to come in but you know as I mentioned you know we're approaching 300,000 absentee ballots that have been sent the previous record was back in June it was a hundred forty one thousand so you know we're well

over double that now so it's very possible that the mail absentees may take a little longer into the evening on election day to get counted it's especially in the bigger counties but the early results you usually are absentees but but not always and people should be prepared to not find out final results are at least unofficial final results until the next day. Well you know here in Oklahoma we you know pride ourselves in the fact that our county election boards work really hard to make sure that you have that you have election results on on election night I think the vast majority of counties will have all of their votes tabulated you know at some point that evening but you know anybody that's expecting a quick night I would readjust your expectations because it could be certainly into the wee hours the next morning before all of our counties are finished uploading results. Paul if you would please remind everyone where to go to get more information.

For number one source for trusted information about elections is the state election board or your county election board you can go to our website elections dot okay dot gov that's elections dot okay dot gov and learn all about Oklahoma elections. State Election Board Secretary Paul Zericks thanks for taking time out of your very busy schedule to visit with us today on Oklahoma engage live voice of the voter thanks. And Logan back to you and be sure to tune in next week same place 1 p.m. next Monday here for Oklahoma engaged live voice of the voter on KGOU thanks for tuning in we'll talk to you next week.