State election board removes GOP members from Oklahoma county election board

This article originally appeared in Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit news organization that produces in-depth and investigative journalism as a public service.

The state Election Board dismissed the Republican member and a Republican alternate from the Oklahoma County Election Board after it determined they failed to certify election results, refused to approve meeting minutes and didn’t disclose conflicts of interest.

In a special meeting, the state board voted Wednesday to dismiss Oklahoma County Election Board Vice Chair Cheryl Williams and Republican Alternate Jenni White after a daylong executive session behind closed doors at the Capitol.

The state board also voted to refer the matters to Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behanna and Attorney General Gentner Drummond for further investigation. It directed the Oklahoma County Republican Central Committee to recommend GOP replacements to the county election board by Feb. 7.

The motion removing White accused her of “purposefully and/or recklessly disseminating false information about Oklahoma’s election system and procedures.” It also said she failed to remove false information. White wrote a Jan. 7 blog post discussing her complaints about the electoral process on the website of Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment. She also hosted a Jan. 24 ROPE podcast on YouTubediscussing election security. It contained an error that she later corrected, White said.

Republican Party activists packed the meeting room on Wednesday before the state election board went into executive session to hear from Williams, White and other election officials, including Oklahoma County Election Board Secretary Doug Sanderson.

At one point, Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, attended the executive session. Olsen is chairman of the House Election and Ethics committee and can attend executive sessions of agencies and boards under his committee’s oversight.

County-level election secretaries are appointed by the state election board, which has the power to remove party representatives from those county election boards. The Republican and Democratic parties in each county recommend a member and an alternate to serve on the three-member county election board.

In an interview Thursday, White said she wasn’t expecting to be dismissed from the alternate position. White said she outlined her questions and complaints in a letter to state election board officials. She received a three-page reply, but then was told to appear before the state board.

“My complaints were mainly about procedure, not personnel, and then suddenly it became all about personnel, not procedure,” White said.

“How was I derelict in my duties?” White said. “I literally went to complain because I wasn’t allowed to do the duties I was trained to do. Because in the training manual, it says where to count the absentee ballots. So how could I be derelict in my duty if I literally complained to them about not being able to do my job?”

Before she appeared before the board in executive session, Williams said she was summoned to the state board for asking questions about election procedures at the Oklahoma County Election Board following a Dec. 12 special election in Oklahoma County.

Williams said a closed-circuit television system for the Republican and Democratic board members to watch absentee ballots being processed didn’t comply with the handbook or training she received for the position. She said Oklahoma County also didn’t have permission to process absentee ballots a day before the Dec. 12 special election.

In a Dec. 12 letter to Sanderson, State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said an Oct. 25 request from Sanderson to meet and process absentee ballots contained a typo referring to the dates. Ziriax amended his authorization to cover the processing of absentee ballots from Nov. 27 to Dec. 11.

“It is unfortunate this occurred,” Ziriax said in the letter. “Had those dates been included in your original request, I would have also approved those dates.”

Williams, who took over from longtime GOP county election board member Anita DeToy in May, said she wasn’t questioning Oklahoma’s entire election system. Williams said she wanted to verify absentee ballots in person and not via CCTV in the next room. She said discussions with GOP counterparts at other county election boards led her to believe Oklahoma County was alone in using CCTV for that part of the election process.

“Our elections are some of the best in the nation,” Williams said. “I do believe that. Those (voting) machines have been in place for at least 20 years.”

David Glover, the Democratic chairman of the Oklahoma County Election Board, said the county has been using the CCTV system during ballot processing without incident or complaints for several years. Glover was among the witnesses called before the board in the executive session.

A spokeswoman for the state Election Board said Ziriax could not comment on the dismissals because they were personnel matters.