The Tulsa County Election Board currently consists of three Board Members and a staff of twenty. The Board Members are Clint Parr, Chairman; Elaine Dodd, Vice-Chairman and Patricia Brown Bryant, Secretary. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman are appointed by their political party and the Secretary is appointed by County senators. All appointments are certified by the State Election Board. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman are present when the Board is taking any action, such as certifying election results or conducting a contest of candidacy hearing. The Secretary of the Election Board actually directs the Board. Within the staff, there are several employees who perform many job functions. The Assistant Secretary oversees the administration of the office and executes many functions in conjunction with the Secretary. The Election Services Coordinator is responsible for the preparation of all the elections that are conducted. The various types of elections are: Statewide Regular Primary, Runoff and General, Presidential Primary, Annual School, Special School, Regular Municipal, Special Municipal and County Specials. The preparation time for an election takes weeks and often even months.
Outside the regular employees, the Tulsa County Election Board employs over 1200 precinct officials, over 40 Absentee Voting Board Members and many part-time election night workers. Each of these special areas is coordinated by members of the regular staff. The body of a Precinct Board is formed of an Inspector, Judge and Clerk. A Republican and a Democrat must be represented on each Precinct Board. An Absentee Voting Board must also recognize each political party. This Board operates as a team of two, one member from each party, traveling to nursing homes in the County to allow these voters to cast their ballot without going to the poll.
The accounting department at the Election Board is responsible for the payrolls of all areas performing services and also the billing of each entity calling for an election. The election setup department enters all the specific parameters for each election on the computer so that the ballots will be counted electronically. Other departments at the Election Board include registration and information, where currently approximately 340,000 Tulsa County voter registration documents are kept and updated according to residency. This department is also responsible for applying vote credit for each voter after each election. The Precinct Official Coordinator is responsible for all precinct official training and staffing of all 262 precincts; this position is additionally responsible for finding and maintaining all polling locations in all 262 precincts.
Precinct boundaries must adhere to all Congressional, State Senate, State House, Judicial and County Commission district lines. This becomes a major project every 10 years after the Federal decennial census is taken.
In addition to the registration department, the Tulsa County Election Board is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of our 320 voting devices. Each device is cleaned, serviced and tested before use in every election. The voting devices currently in use are the Hart InterCivic e-Scan AT. This device was newly purchased by the State of Oklahoma in late 2011 for use in the 2012 elections and all elections thereafter. Oklahoma was the first state to have a statewide voting system, meaning that all 77 counties in Oklahoma are computerized and all use the same voting equipment.
The Tulsa County Election Board office is located at 555 North Denver, in Tulsa. Our office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Registration applicant cutoffs are 24 days before each election. Absentee ballots by mail may be requested until 5 p.m. on the Wednesday before the election. In-person absentee voting is available on the Friday and Monday before all elections from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. In Federal and State elections, in-person absentee voting is additionally available on Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. For additional information call the Tulsa County Election Board office at (918) 596-5780.
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