2020 OK Engaged Election Night; OK Engaged Live 2B

Welcome back to Oklahoma Engaged Live. Voice of the voter here on KGOU will be here each Monday through the month of October leading up to the November election, answering your questions on this unusual election here in 2020. Want to thank Catherine Swini and Quentin Chandler, our state impact reporter, talking about state questions in the previous segment, but now I'm going to hand it off to KGOU General Manager Dick Pryor to talk with Paul Zerix, the Secretary of the State Board of Education and a reminder once again to submit your questions, give us a call, 405-325 KGOU or on social media. KGOU News on Facebook, the hashtag OKEngaged on Twitter. Dick, take it away. Thanks, Logan, and our guest today is Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Zerix. And before we get to Paul, I do want to remind everyone that we have resources on the election

website, OklahomaEngaged.com, and we are live on KGOU until 2 o'clock today, but 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. We will also be carrying live coverage of the hearing over the air on KGOU during the morning hours through Friday. Again, our guest today is Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Zerix. Thanks for taking the time to join us today on Oklahoma Engage Live, Voice of the Voter Paul. Dick, it's a pleasure. I love to talk elections. You know that, so thanks for having me on. I know you do, and we enjoy visiting with you about all of that. And we're past time to register or change registration for the November 3rd General Election. Do you have final numbers yet on registrations in Oklahoma broken down by party? Well, we have really seen a surge in last-minute voter registrations, of course, the deadline was last Friday, October 9th, but it will take a good week or two for county election

boards to handle that crush of last-minute registrations. So voters who got into last-minute should be a little patient. But if you go back to end of September, when you look at the end of month numbers for September, overall, there had been a net increase of registered voters in the state up a little more than 116,000, so it's up quite a lot this year. But here's what's interesting. Since October 1st, you know, I decided you have statistics as of September 30th, starting October 1st through today, county election boards have already processed almost 32,000 new voter registrations. Now that's a lot. Some of those will be registrations of individuals who have moved from one county to another, others will be unique new voters. But that's a lot for a very short time, even in a presidential election year.

Obviously, there is a lot of interest in this election. And among our listeners, about the voting process this year. There is still time to request an absentee mail-in ballot. What do people need to know to get their ballot and how long do they have to request one? Well, any voter who is interested in voting by mail absentee should do so as soon as possible. They need to request that the deadline is actually 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27th. But this year, the United States Postal Service has recommended that you actually mail your absentee ballot by that date. Because our deadline for a county election board to receive it by mail is election day by 7 p.m. October 27th is a week out. So if you're interested in voting by mail, absentee, I recommend you go to our website right now, elections.ok.gov, that's elections.ok.gov, right at the top of our homepage. There's a section.

The headline is mail-absentee voting. You can request an absentee ballot online or you can print off an application and email at faxit or send it to your county election board. But it's an easy and convenient way to vote. We've, Dick, you and I have talked about this many times, you know, forget what happens or might happen or might not happen around the rest of the country here in Oklahoma. Absentee voting is safe and secure. We have a number of safeguards from absentee, affidavit verification, to chain of custody laws, to prohibitions on absentee ballot harvesting that help make sure that the integrity of absentee voting in Oklahoma is protected and our county election boards do a great job of that. But we're definitely seeing record numbers of requests so far this year. Do you have a recommendation as to a date when people should put their ballot in the mail in order for it to be received in time by election day November 3rd? Sure, I'll tell you what the United States Postal Service recommends. They recommend nationally that you put it in the mail at least one week prior to the

deadline for it to be received. So in Oklahoma, the deadline to receive it is election day November 3rd, a week before that is Tuesday, October 27th. So if you're interested in voting by mail absentee, it's a good idea to go ahead and make that request now. That way the county election board will get that to you in a timely fashion and then you'll have plenty of time to vote it and return it. But that one week guideline is not necessarily an end all be all I'll tell you, I voted recently. I've dropped off a ballot on a Saturday morning at a post office mailbox and my county election board had received it by Tuesday. So the local U.S. Postal Service officials are doing a great job of locating those absentee ballots and getting them quickly to county election boards. I think you know this year we used a new green envelope to help that stand out, to help postal services find those absentee ballots and when they're dealing with a C of white envelopes, they can find that green one very easily.

And I can't say enough good things about our local postal service officials and the job they're doing to make sure that absentee ballots are getting delivered in a timely fashion. We have received a lot of questions from our listeners by email also by phone. If you do have a question, call us at 405-325-5468, that's 405-325-KGOU. But we have many questions here, so I'm going to try to zip through these as quickly as we can so as many listeners can have their questions answered as rapidly as possible. Here's one, do you need to put two stamps on the envelope? The U.S. Postal Service is who determines what the postage, the required postage is. A really good way to determine how much postage your return envelope is going to be is to look at how much the county election board postage was on the envelope that your absentee ballot was sent to you in.

So two stamps is usually too much. I can tell you I put a single stamp on my envelope, it made it just fine. I don't think the United States Postal Service returns because you guessed slightly wrong on the postage, but first class postage is required if you have any doubt what that should be. Of course, it's based on weight. The Postal Service can help you determine that, but one or two stamps should suffice. Do you need to have a notary or witness verify your ballot? Well, absentee affidavit verification is one of the critical aspects of election security in Oklahoma for absentee voting. For standard absentee ballots that has traditionally been done with a notary public, that's where the notary is confirming that you're the person to whom the ballot was issued so that no one is taking possession of that and voting it in your place. For certain types of absentee ballots such as physically incapacitated voters and their caretakers, that has been proven by two witnesses.

Of course, because of COVID-19, the legislature created an alternative method, you could still do either one of those, but alternatively you can make a copy of the same type of identification that you would use if you're voting in person, so that would be a federal state or tribal photo ID or a copy of your voter ID card. If you are using a photo ID, make sure though that the expiration date is after the date of the election. The instructions very clearly state this, but we do get questions about that, but make sure it's valid through and after the election if you're making a copy of an ID. But again, back to the original question, notarization, that's fine, or you can make a copy of the ID, if you have the other type of ballot, witnesses are fine, or you can make a copy of your ID. We're talking to Paul Zurich, state election board secretary and Paul, here is a question that is fact specific, but I would imagine that there are many people who might have a

similar question, and it's this, since we are in the above 65 aged vulnerable group, with respect to COVID-19, we've requested and received absentee ballots for the November 3rd election, however, with all the controversy surrounding such ballots in the upcoming election, we are now considering voting in person rather than completing and mailing in the absentee ballots. Can we still vote in person, and what do we do with our mail-in ballot? That is a great question, and I want to preface my answer by saying this, Dick, because this has come up, we've had a lot of questions about this, it is a felony to vote twice at the same election, so you cannot vote both your mail-absentee ballot and vote in person. You can't mail in your absentee ballot and then show up in person. What you can do is if you change your mind and decide you don't want to vote the mail-absentee ballot, you can utilize one of the other two options, you can go to in-person absentee voting, also known as early voting, which is October 29th, 30th and 31st, typically that's

your county election board, but in some counties, the locations are different, we have a list of those on our website, or you can go vote at your polling place on election day, but if you choose to vote in person, make sure you're doing that instead of not in addition to voting your mail-absentee ballot, and when you show up, they will know that you requested an absentee ballot, and they will ask you about it, and if you say I did not vote that, and there's a special affidavit that you will sign, you attest that you did not vote that mail-absentee ballot, and then at that point, once you've signed that, they'll go ahead and issue you a ballot, and that could be during in-person absentee early voting, or at the polling place, but that's a great question, but don't vote twice, it's a felony, and it is the easiest kind of voter fraud to catch, and you will be caught if you try. Where and when can you hand the liver an absentee ballot? Let's assume you have one that you've already requested, and you don't want to wait for the in-person absentee or the same day, but you would like to hand the liver your ballot.

When and where can you do that? Again, another good question, and this is a relatively new thing that's allowed under Oklahoma Law and the legislature enacted this several years ago. I think this might be the second general election, where it is in place in an option. Now, if you requested a standard absentee ballot, this is the only one that's eligible for. A standard absentee ballot is the one that does not require an excuse. It's the most common kind. You can tell if you have a standard absentee ballot by looking at your affidavit, if your affidavit is yellow, then you're allowed to hand the liver that. So you would basically complete the process like you normally would, follow all the instructions, but when you get to the point where you would put a stamp on the envelope and put it in the mail, instead of doing that, you can take that to your county election board office during their regular business hours. You can't go to some other county, you have to go to the county where you're registered about, and you can hand deliver that during their regular business hours up to and including the day before the election.

So Monday, November 2nd is the deadline to hand deliver it, and when you do that, they will ask to see your identification. It would be the same type of ID you would show if you're voting in person. And the reason for that is to make sure that you're not trying to return someone else's absentee ballot, because as you know, under Oklahoma Law, that would be considered a violation of the chain of custody laws and would be considered absentee ballot harvesting. So the idea is to make sure you're only returning your ballot and not trying to return someone else's. But hand delivery, again, is for standard absentee ballots, regular business hours at your county election board up to and including the Monday before the election. And the early in-person balloting is when? That starts on Thursday, October 29th, and it continues on Friday, October 30th, and Saturday, October 31st. The hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the Thursday and Friday. Before the election, on the Saturday, before the election, it's from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. In most counties, that's at your county election board office, but there are county election

boards that have alternative locations or have a different primary location. I'll give you an example in Cleveland County, the county election board office itself does not host early voting, they'll be doing that at the county fairgrounds, which is adjacent to their office, the Tulsa County election board. As another example, they are not hosting it at their office. They're doing it a few blocks away at one oak field where the Tulsa drillers play baseball because that's a nice covered, open air facility with, I think, 20 times as many parking spaces and plenty of room for people to spread out and socially distant. So if you want to know where you vote in your county, and again, you have to early vote in your county where you register to vote, you can go to our website elections.ok.gov and just write it near the top of the page. You can actually find your early voting location based on your county, it'll tell you exactly the dates, times, and location for that.

And that's the best way to find out that information, could you call your county election board? Oh, of course, I don't like to talk to people in person, or on the phone, as you will know, Dick. So for me, in my house, we're going to go to the website. But of course, if you have questions like this, your county election board is a great source of information. All right. Very good. Are there official ballot drop-off boxes in Oklahoma? Oklahoma law does not allow for, quote unquote, drop-off boxes. But as we previously discussed, you can hand deliver your ballot to your county election board, but only your ballot. And it has to be during business hours, and you have to show ID when you do it. And that's up to the day before the election. But even the hand delivery of those standard absentee ballots is a relatively new phenomenon under Oklahoma law. All right. Paul Zurich, state election board secretary. Thanks for staying with us. Into the next segment, Oklahoma engaged as a collaborative journalism project produced

by Oklahoma Public Radio stations, KGOU, KOSU, KCCU, and KWGS, with major funding provided by the Inasmuch Foundation, additional funding provided by the Kirkpatrick Foundation and Oklahoma Humanities. Oklahoma Engage Live Voice of the Voter continues after the break with open phones.