Because I’ve written extensively on Dark Money in Oklahoma elections, it felt like a truly amusing way to pass what little free time we all have left as we try and navigate today’s skyrocketing inflation, making up titles and concepts for the Dark Money mailers sure to inundate our mailboxes right before the June 16th Primary Election.
But first, let’s take a poll:
Maybe some of our political consulting friends will opt in to the poll!
Here’s a clip of the ROPE Report podcast from Wednesday, May 6th, where Michael and I had fun making jokes about this very thing:
So, if you’d like to join in on the fun, make sure to drop YOUR idea for a dark money mailer against Jenni in the comments below! (PS: please make them clean, funny and not gross or mean – we’re just having fun here!)
Friday, June 27th, Michael and I interviewed our newest Senator, Bryan Logan (Paden, OK) of SD8.
Bryan was sworn in May 21st, to replace former Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Roger Thompson, who resigned effective November 1st, 2024, after being removed as Committee Chair by Senator Greg Treat in favor of Senator Chuck Hall.
Though Governor Stitt was well aware of Thompson’s resignation, he chose March 4th as the SD8 primary date with a general election May 13th. I’m still shaking my head at that, so I went out and looked at the statute that governs special elections.
This is the statute that applies: Title 26. Elections, §26-12-106. Vacancies in the Legislature. Here’s what it says for vacancies in odd years; A. Whenever a vacancy shall occur in the office of a member of the State Senate or the State House of Representatives, the vacancy shall be filled at a Special Election to be called by the Governor within thirty (30) days after the vacancy occurs; provided, no special election shall be called if the vacancy occurs in an even-numbered year if the term of the office expires the same year.
AMENDED EXECUTIVE PROCLAMATION I, J. Kevin Stitt, Governor of the State of Oklahoma, pursuant to the authority vested in me by 26 O.S. § 12-119, and pursuant to my constitutional obligation to cause the laws of the State to be faithfully executed, hereby order that a Special Election be held to fill an impending vacancy in the office of District 8 of the Oklahoma Senate, due to the irrevocable resignation of Roger Thompson set to become effective on November 1, 2024.
The candidate Filing Period for the Special Election shall be Monday, January 6, Tuesday, January 7, and Wednesday, January 8, 2025; the Special Primary Election shall be held Tuesday, March 4, 2025; and the Special General Election shall be held Tuesday, May 13, 2025. Any Special Runoff Primary Election, if necessary, shall be held on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.
Let’s walk through this then.
Thompson announced he was leaving in July. His last day was November 1, 2024. Stitt called the special election BEFORE Thompson’s last day, which seems premature according to state law which seems to read AFTER the vacancy occurred, not when notice of vacancy was given.
Then, the filing period could have begun on the 11th day after the proclamation. Why was that held until JANUARY? What happened to December? The first election could have been held 31 days after that, the run-off 21 days after that and the general 21 days after the primary. How was it then, that Bryan’s first election was March 4th, the run-off April 1st and the general May 13th?
That schedule meant that Bryan was sworn in on the 21st of May with only 7 calendar days left in the 2025 legislative session. Consequently, from November 1st to May 21st, SD8 had no representation in the state senate. Why?
Bryan is a bit bumfuzzled about that himself, but what he’s not confused about is his job as a legislator.
In the clip below, Bryan talks about how he decides on his votes. Hint: he’s got the idea down!
In the video below, our new Senator talks about the challenges of being an elected representative – he can’t represent people who won’t make their needs and desires known to him. We go on to talking about the fact that sadly, most people don’t pay attention and participate in the political process – the main reason why our government has gone off the rails on the crazy train.
At one point in the live video (which you can find on our YouTube and Rumble channels), we all three talked about this trend and about why it’s so important for constituents to reach out to their elected officials. Be THAT person! Reach out. Let your elected representative know your feelings. If you don’t, how will you KNOW your liberty is being protected? That’s absolutely our civic duty and we should never forget that our job isn’t JUST voting – our job only STARTS there. We must continue to pay attention – as much as we’re able – to what’s going on in our legislature. At this point, our liberty is very fragile and we MUST stay engaged with our legislators and remind them often, that protecting our liberty is the only reason they’re there. We’re pretty sure Bryan understands that!
Friday, March 21st, former Oklahoma Representative Jason Murphy came on with Michael and I to talk about legislation making its way through the Oklahoma legislature. I would really urge you to watch this particular FULL video (Rumble or YouTube) because we talked about a number of bills. Here, in this synopsis, I’ll touch on the ones we felt were most important.
HB2289 is the one Jason calls, “the thin-skinned congressman bill” because it sounds like one of our elected congressional whiners (that would be all of them but Josh Brecheen and Kevin Hern ) made it up and asked leadership to run it. It basically gives an entire list of things you can’t do/say about our elected federal officials. Bad. And NO. Please contact your Senators at this point and ask them to watch for this crappy bill. Here’s Jason talking about it.
Feel free to go directly to this video clip on YouTube and share to friends and Senators from there.
Another thing Jason wanted to stress, is that the grassroots is rising. More and more people in Oklahoma are paying attention to the games being played at 23rd and Lincoln and who holds power and why. This is such a great thing because it will allow us to finally get our LIBERTY back – finally control our destinies a bit as our forefathers expected us to do. So many of us – like Jason and ROPE – are creating Substacks and media channels that tell the public what is actually going on and not what the legacy media is telling us is going on. The spread of this kind of information is VITAL to an educated populace, so SUBSCRIBE to as many new media authors as you can stand, get educated, educate others and stand up against the global mindset that wants to subjugate us!
As I said, check out the full video where we talk about what happened with new Representative Jim Shaw – absolutely ZERO of his bills were heard in the House this year as payback for beating out entrenched RINO Kevin Wallace – and other bills that weren’t heard, as well as those that were heard but voted down. He even had a few GOOD ones in the mix, like HB1162 – to allow raw milk sales – and HB1515 – the one by new Rep Molly Jenkins that would have allowed absentee voting for only those Oklahomans who had a reason to vote absentee. Interestingly a number of conservatives voted against the bill.
Rep. Steagall and I have been arguing back and forth most of the day over the bill – though it’s too late for this session. My argument is that we KNOW – certainly in Edmond – that absentee ballots have changed election results. Having absentee ballots sent out in the mail indiscriminately (which has happened) allows nefarious people to use the ballots toward their end. In addition, having as many absentee ballots as are used now, over the days that they are allowed to turn them in, poses real issues for chain of custody. It used to be that, unless you had an excuse as to why you couldn’t turn up at the poll, you had to turn up at the poll.
Rep Steagall believes that it’s no one’s business why anyone votes absentee and that it’s a security risk to the family of the deployed to have to disclose that they are not in the country or otherwise deployed. We’re still arguing…LOL.
The bottom line here is that this session – certainly in the House – has been very difficult to follow with the ‘new’ (old) committee system of ‘oversight’ committees (that didn’t work the last time they were used) and that leadership still seems to have the same lock on legislation – cutting out “we the people” – that they always have. We’ll continue to ask Jason back to give us updates when he’s able. In the meantime, make sure you’re following people who are following legislation and follow Jason’s substack at OklahomaStateCapitol.substack.com! We’re only half-way through the session.
This week (and last, since I wasn’t able to post last week due to a farm emergency) there are a number of new posts to the blog. Most of these are about legislation since we’re quickly reaching the date (3.6.25) for bills to switch houses (from House to Senate or vice-versa).
This is the most infuriating situation. Citing “political drama”, Governor Stitt fired three members of the State School Board on February 12th. The “political drama” apparently had to do with an agenda item on the previous week’s State School Board agenda wherein the Board would vote to find a way to count the number of ILLEGAL immigrants in Oklahoma classrooms. There is definitely some “political drama” here if not “political intrigue” and I hope to expose all that in upcoming weeks. This all stems from a very influential man in Oklahoma politics who has an R after his name, who believes illegal immigration is essentially fine and works deals with elected officials to create policies – written or not – that protect them in this state. The saddest part here is that these three board members were doing Yeoman’s work ridding Oklahoma public education of school employees that sexually abuse students. Our governor is – AGAIN – completely wrong. Read the blog for information on who was selected to replace the three removed members. None have any educational experience whatsoever, so, there’s that.
Unfortunately, we’ve lost several lambs on the farm this winter season, so I used them as the backdrop to talk about the horror show that is spreading human waste on cropland in Oklahoma. This is as bad as it sounds and now the EPA and other organizations, have shown that this material contains ‘forever chemicals’, cancer-causing molecules cause PFAS. Unfortunately, an excellent bill to stop the practice, written by new Representative Jim Shaw (from Lincoln County where this has been done regularly for many, many years) has been denied a hearing in Committee this year. This will not just hurt farmers and ranchers who use the stuff, but PFAS and other chemicals have been shown to migrate from where they were dumped and into water sources, effecting neighboring farmsteads as well. Please read the blog to find out more about the practice and why you should want this stopped even if you live in a city.
Former Representative, Jason Murphy knows a lot about the legislature, having served there a full 12 year term. Today, he is making the most of that knowledge by writing a Substack called, “The Oklahoma State Capitol“. He joined Michael and I on the podcast last week to talk about how the legislative process – at least the way its been run in recent history – is simply a shell game to keep the citizenry appeased and the lobbyists/big business interests that run the state, happy. You’ll want to read the blog to see who all these interests are so you can keep your eye out for them.
We’ve had Robert on the show before and his descriptions of what happened to him during his campaign for SD15. It was eye-opening. Here, he gives us some updates on his current case. This blog is SUPER IMPORTANT to read because I’ve embedded Robert’s Supreme Court documents. These documents include photographs and specific instances of the Oklahoma State Election Board irregularities over which Robert took them to court. These are MORE than eye-opening. It shows that there are real concerns with our State Election Board and the processes that govern election law in Oklahoma – and this knowledge is important to EVERY Oklahoman.
This last week, Senator Lankford has hit social media hard to capitalize on the Elon Musk/DOGE efforts at right-sizing government. Over and over again he’d Tweet (X) out a message about how government is ‘fumbling’ (a take on his 5th Federal Fumbles, just out) with spending. Unfortunately, it hit me as being pretty disingenuous because he’s never seen a budget he didn’t like. After Tweeting back at him a couple times, I decided to stop and actually write a piece on his voting record and why Lankford needs to leave DC and find a new job. In order to be fair, I went to the VOTE SMART website and looked through every one of the votes they had posted there. While some of his votes are quite good, all but one time, he’s voted for the budget and for continuing appropriations. Check out the article. Lankford may be one of your very favorite people, but at least read this knowing that I’ve been fair. If you’ve never seen his voting record, it might be pretty interesting….
This is a SUPER IMPORTANT article because HB1937 is still alive. Contact your Representative immediately and tell them that this must be a NO vote if it’s brought to the floor. This bill basically undoes the good legislation former Rep. Sherrie Conley had passed before she left the House that prevents public school employees from communicating with a student without the knowlege of a parent. Unfortunately, perennial public school employees Lowe and Sterling, felt that this created an undue burden for public school employees and created a bill to allow parents to ‘opt out’ of the law’s requirement. This is a really bad idea and if you’re not quite sure how, please read the piece where Michael, Mary from V1SUT and I spell it out clearly.
We’ve talked about this fact many times on the podcast – the fact that we all seem to think that public schools were created to educate children – but they’re not. Here, Julianne Romanello, Michael and I talk about what public schools actually do and what the educational trend will be for students over time if we don’t STOP it now.
If bills were not assigned to a Committee for the upcoming week (2.24), they will not get a hearing in the Oklahoma legislature this year. NONE of new Representative Jim Shaw’s bills received a hearing in a committee. Why? I make the case that Shaw’s defeat of Kevin Wallace (former House Appropriations Chair) is at the epicenter of this situation in which citizens of HD32 will be taxed without representation during the 2025 legislative session. This is unforgivable. Personal pettiness should NEVER stand in the way of the democratic process in America and certainly not in a ‘red state’ like Oklahoma.
LEGISLATION
So much legislation has been passed through Committees this session, with more coming up this week. The cell phone bill is still in play (Usurping Local Control – Cell Phone Restrictions In Oklahoma – NO on SB1389 and HB1276). Please read the article to find out the many reasons this is a BAD bill that needs to be voted down by the House and Senate both.
To be honest, with the new two-tiered committee structure in the House, it’s been hard to follow bills. I’ve been hoping that different groups following bills would let me know what’s out there and what needs to be followed, but I think the system is doing it’s job and making it hard for people to follow the legislation they want to see stopped or followed.
OKLAHOMA SUBSTACK AUTHORS
Don’t forget to check out our Substack authors this week!
On Valentine’s Day, former SD15 candidate, Robert Keyes caught us up on his fight for election transparency in Oklahoma. It was a very interesting podcast and you can find the full live version on our YouTube and Rumble channels.
Robert ran for Senate against Lisa Standridge, the wife of previous office holder, Rob Standridge, who had termed out of office.
It is Keyes’ contention – which has not been proven wrong – that Lisa Standridge’s campaign manager broke Oklahoma election law by notarizing and collecting absentee ballots – something neither members of a campaign or the candidate can do according to existing state law.
Keyes lost by 51 votes and following the close of the election, his team of attorneys were able to document 41 instances of election irregularities – fifty-one of which would overturn the results. Robert recounts that the State Election Board (SEB) was not only not helpful in helping him get to the bottom of these irregularities, they actually blocked him from discovering information.
After the irregularities were discovered and documented – including the little nugget below
– Keyes and his attorneys came to an agreement with the Standridge’s attorneys and the SEB at a closed meeting that would allow the SEB to certify the election for Standridge while insuring Keyes that – among other points – the irregularities would be investigated. Unfortunately, when it was time to implement the agreement – both parties refused to uphold the agreement as promised to Keyes.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, Keyes – court reported documents from the meeting in hand – took both the SEB and the Standridge’s to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Supreme Court punted the case to Cleveland County Justice Jeff Virgin, who refused to make a ruling.
As an aside, the Honorable Judge Virgin is the son of longtime Norman attorney Blake Virgin, and the brother of Emily Virgin, formerly serving as a Democrat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
Hopefully, you’re scratching your head in wonder at why NO ONE in the commission of justice in central Oklahoma wants to attempt to UPHOLD JUSTICE and if you’re not, you should be. This situation should create actual fear in the citizenry of Oklahoma that Democracy in a state where all 77 counties voted for Trump – is dead.
Below is the Keyes case before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Scroll through it and you will see the MANY, MANY examples of irregularities in Keyes’ election. This isn’t a complaint without merit from Keyes. There is substantial information here to suggest that our state’s election process is marred – and possibly improper – as I alleged during the time I was an alternate Oklahoma County Election Board member.
This is a short video of Mr. Keyes talking about the frustration he has surrounding this election – the number of irregularities that were found and the lack of ANY justice official willing to investigate the findings. In fact, he says that one of the most frustrating thing about his entire election has been that he believes there are bigger problems with the SEB than just one election.
Another very unfortunate and frustrating issue adjacent to this case, is the fact that Senate Pro Temp Lonnie Paxton – who narrowly won election to the Pro Temp post over challenger David Bullard – has authored SB654, which removes the 2 sections of law allegedly broken by Standridge’s campaign. While I’m all for repealing laws, these two pieces of Oklahoma election law SHOULD NOT BE REMOVED and, to me, it’s actually quite suspicious that this bill was authored in the first place after a close campaign with irregularities in which both the SEB and Standridges refused to uphold an agreed upon resolution.
This entire case should be concerning to every Oklahoma interested in election integrity in Oklahoma. We’ll continue to follow this case and bring you updates, however, we ask that you share this information with your friends – no matter WHAT political affiliation they may be – because without elections we can trust, we have very little by which to call ourselves Americans – let alone Oklahomans.
ADDENDUM: I think it might be important to note here that in 2008, Glenn Coffee – a long-time Oklahoma attorney – was Senate Co-Pro Temp. He appointed Paul Ziriax as Secretary of the State Election Board and Secretary of the Senate. Coffee was followed by Pro Temp Brian Bingman who continued Ziriax’ appointment. Bingman was followed by Pro Temp Greg Treat who also continued Ziriax’ appointment. Treat was followed by Pro Temp Lonnie Paxton, who also continued Ziriax’ appointment.
It is also interesting to note that Glenn Coffee has been hired to be the ‘Senior Legal Consultant’ to the Senate Republican Caucus this year by Ryan Overholt, the Senate’s Chief of Staff. Coffee, who made millions of dollars on the state’s opioid lawsuit, has left a thriving law practice to come to work for the Oklahoma Senate for $12,500 per month for 12 months. This seems like a step down, which prompts a number of questions.
Senate President Pro Tempore Designate Glenn Coffee has announced his choice for Secretary of the Senate and State Election Board Secretary. Paul Ziriax, who has held the title of Leadership Assistant at the State Senate for the past six years, has been named to the dual posts.
The Pro Tempore selects the Secretary of the Senate, who must then be elected by a majority of members. Under Oklahoma law that individual also serves as State Election Board Secretary.
“Paul’s experience in both state and national government positions have prepared him well for these new responsibilities,” Coffee said. “I also know him to be a man of tremendous character and intellect, with an abiding respect for the political process and democracy. I know he will do an outstanding job on behalf of the people of Oklahoma.”
“Oklahoma has a national reputation for the efficient way in which our elections are conducted, and Michael Clingman should be commended for the great job he’s done as Secretary of the Senate and Secretary of the State Election Board,” stated Coffee. “I wish Michael the best of luck in his new role as director of the Office of State Finance.”
Before coming to work for the Senate, Ziriax was the Chief of staff and press secretary to former U.S. Congressman Wes Watkins. He serves on the State Capitol Preservation Commission and is a member of the Legislative Information and Communication Staff Section and Leadership Staff Section of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ziriax earned a degree in Business Administration and Finance from Oklahoma State University, and is a member of the OSU Alumni Association.
The Secretary of the Senate directs the floor staff and oversees the preparation of daily printing and general publications and the content of forms used by the Senate for various reports and procedures. The Secretary is the custodian of all Senate records and provides assistance to the President Pro Tempore and the presiding officer. The State Election Board Secretary is the chief administrative officer of the State Election Board.
“I am deeply honored by the faith Senator Coffee has placed in me,” Ziriax said. “I have some big shoes to fill. I am thrilled with this new opportunity, and look forward to continuing my public service.”
Ziriax, age 37, is a native of Claremore, Oklahoma, but currently resides in Edmond with his wife, Lisa, and their nearly 2-year-old daughter, Allie. They are members of Faith Bible Church in Edmond.
The full Senate will vote on Ziriax’s appointment when they return for an organizational day on January 6, 2009.
This list was composed by Wendi Montgomery Dial and published to her Restore Liberty Substack. You can find the whole piece here. Not all information from her Substack is reproduced here, just the basic information, so please go read for more information.
Bills that should not be passed:
HB 1116, Stewart. This bill would introduce automatic voter registration upon renewal of a driver’s license. It would also automatically register minors as soon as they receive their adult driver’s license at 18.
SB 1086, Gollihare. This bill restricts public access to voter registration rolls. This would make election integrity efforts much harder.
SB 129, Kirt. This bill would increase the days of in person absentee voting to 14 calendar days. The goal in order to achieve secure elections is to have all elections conducted on one day, Election Day, as the US Constitution requires. Rating? Ugly.
SB 214, Goodwin. This bill changes the date of special elections and forces the governor to make the call for a special election within a specific time frame. This also takes State questions out of the general elections where they would have more votes and puts them in a special election where they would have little attention and very little participation, a hypothetical election manipulator’s dream scenario.
SB 273, Boren. This bill would add 2 days to Early Voting and also add polling places for the practice, 1 polling place for every 15,000 voters. This also adds local law enforcement to the sheriff’s duties carried out during elections.
SB 147, Pederson. This bill mandates post election audits after each elections. The parameters of these audits would be determined by the State Election Board. Currently Oklahoma conducts risk limiting audits randomly after elections.
SB 654, Paxton. This bill removes notarizing too many ballots from the definition of ballot harvesting, a felony, plus makes it far more difficult to prosecute a notary for breaking the law and notarizing over twenty ballots by introducing language regarding intent. This renders Oklahoma law against a notary witnessing over 20 ballots per election essentially useless. Rating? Ugly.
HB 1985, Ranson. This bill would make straight party voting illegal and require voters to fill out their individual choices for all ballot races and measures.
SB 962, Haste. This bill increases fees for all recounts of elections. There would be penalties if irregularities are not proven in a court of law to a judge.
SB 525, Boren. This bill would add unelected members of law enforcement to the process of securing elections and provide training for those officers.
HB 1010, Jenkins. This bill would charge a political party for all costs of the state for their candidates being on the ballot of a primary election IF the delegates to the party’s national convention cast their votes for someone other than the candidate who received the vote of the state. Rating? Bad.
Bills that should be passed or that will enhance election security:
HB1151, Banning. This bill moves school board elections to existing primary and general election dates. It also changes the terms to four years for all school board members.
SB 834, Bullard. This bill prohibits open and jungle primaries in Oklahoma with penalties that include voiding the elections that are held with an open primary. Rating? Good.
HB1120, Lepak. This bill would prohibit the Secretary of the State Election Board or any other county secretary of an election board from implementing any new federal guidance or directives without the prior approval from the State Legislature.
SB 652, Paxton. This bill restricts the calendar dates that a special election may be called.
SB 659, Deevers. This bill would require that state agencies verify US citizenship and Oklahoma residency of anyone before giving them voter registration materials. This bill contains a penalty of a fine not to exceed $5,000 and sets the violation at a misdemeanor. Rating? Good.
SB 536, Howard. This is a bill related to the duties of the assistant secretary of the county election board and adds to the provisions of that role.
HB 2191, Wolfley. This bill would require notaries to turn over their logs as public record if they apply for an exemption to be able to lawfully notarize more than 20 ballots in any election.
SB 1116, Sacchieri. This bill would require any State Question or proposal sent to voters to include conspicuous language if the passage of the proposal would result in a tax increase on the citizens. Rating? Good.
SB 990, Coleman. This is a bill that establishes a mechanism for recall elections in statewide races in Oklahoma.
SB 735, Deevers. This bill sets up a requirement for each county election board secretary to submit annually a report to the state election board, as well as a requirement for the state election board to report to the legislature and governor, of their efforts to maintain the voter registration rolls of the state.
HB 1005, Olsen. This bill would require Service Oklahoma to develop a photo ID voter registration card that would be offered free to certain registered voters.
HB 1007, Olsen. This bill would not allow an ID issued by an educational institution to be used as a valid form of identification to vote.
Revision
SB953, Deevers. This is a bill that creates the Election Integrity Enforcement Act which authorizes District Attorneys to initiate civil actions on behalf of voters within their respective judicial districts in cases of alleged election irregularities or fraud. Rating? Excellent.
The following was put together by Wendi Montgomery Dial and published here on Oklahoma Grassroots. Wendi and Amber Evans will be on our podcast, Friday, November 1st at 9am live on our Rumble, YouTube, Facebook and LinkdIn channels to talk about this very thing! TUNE IN!
OKLAHOMA ELECTION INTEGRITY CHECK LIST
Send all irregularities by photo, video, or written file or affidavit to wendidial@protonmail.com
Look for your county election board’s meeting to open and count absentee ballots. Make sure you attend that meeting and DOCUMENT THE PROCESS. Take notes, videos, etc. Familiarize yourself with Title 26 as it relates to absentee ballot voting counting and take the statute with you. Find it here beginning on page 172. http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/OK_Statutes/CompleteTitles/os26.pdf
Ask for the list of Absentee Ballot voters from your county election board before you leave. They must give this to you upon request and it will likely come on a CD ROM.
Gain access to the Election Data Warehouse by filling out the request form here https://data.okelections.gov/Home/GetPdf . It’s free and you may have access for one year once approved. Download the files for the voter registration records, Absentee ballot requests, voter history, and the deleted voter files. These records change daily, so download several times a week. Watch for deleted files to be put back into the system or other problems. Report to your county election board if you find issues in your county, then the state election board if the county doesn’t address the problems. Send a report of the issues to the above email address.
On election day, document your visit to your polling place. Record any report that you get from friends or family about unusual activities at their polling places. Take notes, videos, etc.
Check available wifi connections and screenshot all of them that populate your phone directly outside the polling place. Pay special attention to the ATT connections that WILL show up.
ASK HOW MANY TOTAL VOTERS HAVE COME THROUGH THAT DAY and keep track of how many scan their ballots before you reach the machine. If you are Speedy Gonzales filling out your ballot (if you are older than 30 you should know who that is), the number you’ve been given at the table won’t match the number on the machine. Check the number of ballots that have been run through the machine and make sure it closely matches how many total voters you have been told have come through. The numbers shouldn’t be off by more than the number of voting stalls in the polling place. If they are, then there’s potentially been extra ballots run through the machine.
TAKE A PHOTO OF YOUR BALLOT AND/OR VIDEO OF YOU SCANNING IT INTO THE MACHINE. THIS IS YOUR PROOF YOU VOTED AND HOW YOU VOTED IN CASE YOUR VOTER HISTORY IN THE POLLING BOOKS ‘GETS LOST’ OR IS NEVER POPULATED INTO YOUR HISTORY. OR, HEAVEN FORBID, OUR ELECTION BOARD’S DATA GETS WIPED.
If you vote straight party, still FILL OUT EVERY RACE INDIVIDUALLY.
IF THE MACHINES GO DOWN DO NOT LEAVE!!! STAY UNTIL THE MACHINE IS FIXED AND NEVER GIVE YOUR BALLOT TO ANYONE TO SCAN FOR YOU.
WHEN TO CALL YOUR COUNTY SHERIFF – first, have the number to your sheriff’s department number in your phone. Then DO NOT LEAVE until you have filed a report with a deputy and find out how to get a copy of it. Please send a copy of any report filed to the email address above. IF YOU HAVE TO CALL THE SHERIFF, please text 405-207-7709 and report the situation to that number, please. Do not call it. I won’t answer phone calls on Election Day except for people in my contact list. Thanks for understanding. Call the sheriff’s department if:
Told you already voted
Polls Closed Early
Unable to Cast Ballot
Denied Access To Vote
Claim You Aren’t Registered
Witness Illegal Activity
Told They Ran Out of Ballots
Observers Are Kicked Out
Political Intimidation
Forced to Vote Provisional
Major System Malfunctions
Call your local County DA’s office after you file the report with the Sheriff. If the Sheriff refuses to come and fill out a report REPORT THAT IMMEDIATELY to your local DA’s office and then by text to the phone number above.
Watch your voter history and document it daily. Take screenshots and watch for unusual changes in the records for the next SEVERAL weeks. Check it like you do your news feed in the morning. okvoterportal.okelections.gov/. Document any changes and send to the email address above.
Not according to our friend Amber Evans – who has pulled Oklahoma voter roll data for examination.
What does this mean?
According to state law, everyone who votes in Oklahoma must be a valid elector. What is a valid elector? Watch and Amber will show you and explain.
How do these people get left on the rolls? Because they aren’t noticed by election personnel and deleted. What personnel would delete them? Personnel at either the County, or State, Election Board (SEB). Why isn’t this getting done – especially when we were just given the talking point by the state that the SEB purged 450,000 voters since 2021? That answer is unclear.
The SEB performed an official audit of the state’s Primary Elections which was released at the end of August. I urge you to review it. We are told at the beginning, “The post-election audits were conducted pursuant to the procedures developed in advance under the direction of the Secretary of the State Election Board”, but we’re not told what those procedures were or where they were located in state law, so we know nothing about the procedures used in the audit.
Were the absentee ballots checked to make sure they followed state law? I’ve said on numerous occasions that – before I was fired from the Oklahoma County election board – we didn’t check to make sure there weren’t more than 20 absentee ballots submitted by one notary as state law required. What about the notary themselves? They’re required to maintain a log of their absentee ballots for two years so their records can be checked against absentee ballots submitted to county election boards. Have any of those been audited? If not, why have the law?
Notice these things about the released audit;
Not every race was fully audited – they were ‘spot’ audited, meaning one race was audited for absentee ballots and another for precinct reports (machine tabulations) – so it was not a full audit as we were led to believe by the press release.
Not every precinct, or race, was audited.
Only certain results were printed in the audit ‘report’, the public was not provided a link to the database with the information collected. This is important because we have no way of ‘checking up’ on the results, we’re just told by the SEB what they were.
The ‘audit’ results given are not broken down. All we’re given in the ‘audit’ is a list indicating that ‘everything’ (whatever that is) matched up 100%, which results in the following questions:
how many absentee ballots were there in the race?
how many in-person voters were there in the race?
Consequently, when you stop to really examine the ‘audit’ released by the SEB, how do we really know that what we’re being told – that the primary elections were 100% accurate – is true? Where is the data? Why wasn’t the report specific in nature? All the information I mentioned that wasn’t included, could have been collected in a spreadsheet and a link provided to the public.
Again, this information doesn’t even take into consideration the VOTER ROLLS.
We were told by the Governor on September 18th, about the numbers of voters who have been purged from Oklahoma’s voter rolls since 2021. KOSU, received actual data from the Governor’s office, as it was not provided in his press release.
Look, I’m a former scientist. I understand data. This is nonsense. Again, actual data would be listed in a spreadsheet and broken down for all to see. This is meaningless data that requires us to take the SEB at their word.
The SEB insists that we have 100% accuracy in the Oklahoma primaries, however – and again – how is it that Amber found all the non-eligible electors on the Comanche County voter rolls and over 100,000 on the state rolls AFTER the multiple purges this ‘data’ represent.
But it’s not only that.
What about people who have moved into and out of Oklahoma? The clip on that topic was too large to create, but if you find the FULL LIVE video on our Rumble or YouTube account and fast forward to 34:27 and watch until about 1:13:20(ish), you’ll get a great discussion on the fact that it isn’t clear how often Oklahoma’s voter rolls are run against the National Change of Address database as per law.
Amber ran Comanche county data against the NCOA in September of last year and found that 19.3% of the registered voters in the county had moved and/or registered in another county or state. That’s a very large number of INELIGIBLE VOTERS on the rolls in that county and who’s to say if people are double voting? How would anyone know?
In addition, she also found a voter with double registration – another thing that was supposed to be in the purged data according to our Governor and the SEB. Again, without real data on the purge – which we’re not given – Oklahoma citizens are unable to examine these issues for themselves. THAT is a problem.
And one last thing that we briefly covered on the full LIVE video, how can Oklahoma have a law that says that election board members SHALL certify an election? At 28:42 on the full video, we talk about that. That’s a problem in and of itself.
The takeaway here is this: Oklahoma’s elections are probably some of the safest in the country, but are they 100% accurate as the SEB and Secretary Ziriax have asserted? No. There’s no way they could be. There are way too many unanswered questions about the number of unqualified electors on the roll according to the data Amber has pulled and analyzed.
We need to find legislators willing to make changes to Title 26 to clarify the ways in which Oklahoma’s voter rolls are cleaned and maintained. Without that, Oklahoma’s election results still can’t be guaranteed. Hopefully, after the video, that’s 100% obvious.
Sorry to disappoint – that was a click-bait title (LOL) – but no one ‘won’ the debate. In fact, it was one of the best discussions we’ve had on the ROPE Report.
Chairman of the Libertarian Party and Bethany City Council Board Member, Chris Powell, joined our friends Amber Evans and Wendi Montgomery Dial (OK State Director of Restore Liberty) to talk about whether or not voter rolls in Oklahoma need to be archived and all voters re-registered. We gave each of the three 5 minutes in a round robin to talk about why – or why not – the voter rolls should be re-registered.
You can find the entire live broadcast on our YouTube and Rumble channels, but below is a wrap-up of the pro-position by Wendi.
In the video, Wendi references a candidate challenge – of which Chris was a part, because the candidate was a Libertarian – adjudicated by the Oklahoma State Election Board during candidate filing earlier this year. Amber, Wendi, Michael and I talked specifically about this issue in our ROPE Report LIVE from April 26th of this year, starting at about 31 minutes in. It’s well worth the watch if you’re so inclined – very interesting information.
Below, Michael and I talk about our specific experiences with the voter rolls in Oklahoma County. Michael from a candidate’s perspective during his run for Edmond School Board, and me from the time the Town of Luther (where I was Mayor for a term) decided to send out letters to ALL prospective voters, alerting them to the date of an upcoming vote to increase the sales tax. Unfortunately, both of us had the same experience with the voter lists we received.
Michael got a list of the voters in his district to knock doors and send literature, and I got a list of voters in my district to send letters to, from the Oklahoma County Election Board (OCEB). Michael had loads of voters on his ‘walk’ list that door knockers found to be not living at the addresses identified by the OCEB and I had a stack of about a quarter of the total letters I sent returned to me because of wrong addresses.
It makes sense that a candidate with nefarious purpose, might be able to ‘test’ a list by sending out mailers to everyone on the list given him/her by their county election board. They could then check addresses returned to make sure people don’t live at the listed address, wait until election time, apply for an absentee ballot with that person’s information and vote like the person is still on the rolls at that address. In this way, people could illegally vote absentee – and how would they be caught doing so?
From my time on the Oklahoma County Election Board (OCEB), I can tell you that there would be no way for ballot counters to have any idea if the person voting absentee lived at the address listed on the envelope – absentee ballots are notarized to signify that the voter is who he/she says they are – but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that anyone can apply to be a notary.
At the OCEB in 2023 when I was a Board member, the way absentee ballots were processed, we never even knew if there were notaries notarizing more than the lawful maximum of 20. The ballots were never laid out in piles per notary, they were simply checked to make sure all lawful information was present on the envelope and removed to another room for removal of the envelope.
Many of the elections in Edmond (Ronda Peterson, Michael Grande, Margaret Best – to name a few) that I’ve followed have had Republican candidates win at the ballot box, but then lose the race by a few absentee ballots. It certainly seems plausible and one reason Oklahoma needs to clean up our voter rolls.
Because I didn’t make a video clip of Chris’ perspective, I asked him to send me some of his suggestions for making sure Oklahoma’s voter rolls are as clean as possible. Here’s what he sent:
Some of the things I would change are things we didn’t get into. I’d get rid of partisan registration (and so also straight party voting) and in fact I’d favor doing away with partisan primaries altogether. But that’s probably a different show that could also talk about open primaries, Top-Two jungle primaries, ranked-choice voting, election calendar reform, and that kind of stuff.
To be specific to the voter roll, I think it’d be really easy to add a question of “has your address changed?’ when voters sign the book at the polling place on Election Day and get that new address. I’d also like to see an interstate voter roll integrity organization, but I’d like it to be limited to providing information for states to use as they see fit rather than dictating either to include or exclude voters. But a major point that Wendi and I alluded to but didn’t really state straight out is that the voter rolls are always going to be heavily dependent upon the actions of individual voters. All the laws in the world only work as well as people choosing to comply and if things are made too cumbersome it fuels the argument for a more wide-open system which is something I’m sure many people don’t want.
Wendi also sent me a follow-up with her ideas:
SHOW PHOTO ID when reregistering.
Reregister over 2 years and then archive the old rolls.
Issue the State Election Board funds to advertise the reregistration, including mailers, commercials on local tv and radio networks.
Allow provisional ballots at the polls for the first presidential election after the reregistration deadline for those who still wish to vote but missed the above advertising.
Have special nursing home teams to get out and reregister the elderly and infirmed.
And here are Amber’s:
Election laws should be changed so that registered voters & candidates – through canvassing – can report voters not living at the address for which they are registered. The State Election Board should then go through the appropriate steps to verify the findings and remove the voter from the rolls once verified.
The voter rolls need to be cleaned more often, and the State Election Board needs to look at the rolls and go through the proper process to get correct lawfully physical addresses for voters on the rolls and remove any addresses violating O.S.26
After reading the blog and watching the videos, take some time to have a discussion with your duly elected Representative and Senator about this issue – even forward them this article. As Wendi pointed out so well in her closing, clean voter rolls containing only lawful entries are of upmost importance to – not only the security of Oklahoma elections – but the electoral process itself.
