Oklahoma County voters ran into delays at some polling places Tuesday after voting machines began acting up at several precincts across the county, election officials confirmed. The hiccups come as Oklahomans across the state turn out for Election Day, with technicians dispatched to address the equipment.
The Oklahoma County Election Board said it had received reports of machine problems at multiple polling locations Tuesday morning, according to News 9. Board Secretary Doug Sanderson told the outlet that such issues are not unusual on Election Day, even as voters at affected precincts waited longer than expected to cast their ballots.
Officials stressed that no votes were at risk because of the malfunctions. Ballots affected by the problems were being placed in locked emergency bins and were expected to be counted Tuesday, per the same report. Technicians were being sent out to the polling locations to pinpoint the cause of the problems and get the machines running again.
How the Emergency Bin Process Works
The emergency bin procedure isn’t unique to Oklahoma County. State guidance describes the same safeguard for moments when a machine goes down or power is lost at a precinct. In the event of a power outage or technical issue, voters can deposit their marked ballots into a locked, emergency ballot bin, with those ballots counted once the power has been restored or the voting devices and equipment have been returned to the county election board, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board.
A similar scenario played out Tuesday in neighboring Tulsa County, where a ballot-counting machine malfunctioned at Owasso Church of Christ, a polling site on North 129th East Avenue. As FOX23 reported, the fix mirrored what Oklahoma County voters experienced: ballots were placed in the emergency bin by the voter, to be run through the eScan and counted once the issue was fixed.
Machine Issues Addressed
Oklahoma County election officials were addressing machine problems Tuesday. Officials had fixed the issues, and someone was standing by.
Officials outlined a backup plan if a machine couldn’t be quickly repaired: ballots can be placed in a secure box while a working machine is made available, and if the problem persists, that secured box with ballots will be taken back to the election board to be counted, according to KOCO.
Turnout Already Running High
The machine troubles landed on a day when Oklahomans were already showing up in force. In Tulsa County, 26,211 people voted early, surpassing the number of votes cast there in the entire 2024 presidential election, FOX23 reported. That early surge adds pressure on Election Day infrastructure, even as officials in both counties worked to reassure voters that their ballots wouldn’t be lost in the shuffle.
Oklahoma law gives county election boards authority to open the transfer case and recount ballots on election night under specific circumstances, including when uncounted ballots exceed 2% of voters in a precinct or when certain voting-device malfunctions prevent accurate processing, per Oklahoma Statutes.
Election-day equipment headaches aren’t new to the state. Oklahoma officials have previously pushed through disruptions to keep polls open, including a 2020 election when some polling places were still affected by power outages from an ice storm the week before, as The Oklahoman reported at the time. Power companies had put a priority on restoring electricity to polling locations ahead of that election, state officials said.
