Changes Face Voters in 2012 Elections
REDISTRICTING
Some voters in the 2012 elections will find themselves assigned to a new polling place, or voting for candidates in districts new to them. The changes in voting precincts or districts are due to new congressional and legislative district lines drawn in the 2011redistricting process. District boundaries must be redrawn every 10 years to reflect changes in population enumerated in the census. The Oklahoma Legislature went through the redistricting process last spring during the regular legislative session. Most voters should have received new voter registration cards to reflect the changes.
With an 8.7 percent increase in population since the 2000 census, the Oklahoma Legislature had to redraw election districts to balance the population. According to the 2010 Census, Oklahoma's total population is 3,751,351; therefore, each of the state's five congressional districts should have approximately 750,270 people. The revised congressional districts make only minor modifications to the past boundaries. The state has 101 seats in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. That means each state house district should ideally include 37,142 people. There are 48 seats in the Oklahoma Senate. So, each senate district needed to have 78,153 people. Some legislative districts in areas of lesser population had to be moved or reshaped in order to accommodate areas with increased population.
While the redistricting act approved by the legislature and signed by the governor repealed the old legislative district lines effective November 1, 2011, legislators will continue in office until the next regular election. All seats in the Oklahoma House will be up for election in 2012. Since members of Oklahoma Senate serve four-year staggered terms, only half will stand for election in 2012, with the remaining seats not up until 2014. However, special elections to fill vacancies will be conducted using the new state legislative districts lines. There are currently three Special Elections in progress to fill vacancies which will be based on the new districts: State Representative District 71 (Tulsa County), State Senator District 46 (Oklahoma County), and State Senator District 20 (Kingfisher, Logan, Noble and Pawnee counties). The February 14 Special General Election to fill the vacant State Representative District 1 seat which covers the far southeast corner of Oklahoma will follow the old boundary since the seat became vacant prior to the redistricting effective date. Rep. Rusty Farley (R-Haworth) died on July 4 after suffering a pulmonary aneurysm.
BALLOTING
The most significant change in voting since the state stopped counting ballots by hand in 1992 begins in February. Election official say the new balloting system will provide faster election results and more data. Last year, the Oklahoma State Election Board selected Hart InterCivic, Inc. to implement Oklahoma's new statewide voting system. The contract covers purchasing the hardware and software for the voting machines as well as the training of nearly 10,000 precinct workers, and technical support for the system. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company offers electronic voting systems and services to state and local governments in over 300 jurisdictions including the entire state of Texas, Hawaii, and now Oklahoma. They also have almost all the counties in Colorado and Washington.
The $16.7 million system was paid for by funds provided by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The funds can only be used to purchase new voting systems and make upgrades to existing systems needed to comply with federal voting regulations. The HAVA law was passed by Congress in 2002 following the balloting problems in the 2000 presidential election. Oklahoma had $26 million remaining from the $33 million federal grant it received in 2005. Some of the grant was earlier used to upgrade computer hardware and software for the statewide voter registration database.
Bids were sought to replace the optical scanner devices which were first used in the presidential primary in 1992. The current system lasted twice as long as expected. State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said the state received five responses from companies interested in providing the new system. Ziriax said that the company received the highest overall scores in the evaluation process and also provided the lowest cost. The new machines will operate similar to the devices currently used, in which voters mark the ballots and insert them into the optical scanning counters.
Each of the state's 1,958 voting locations will have the new ballot scanning machines. The new machines and data system will be used for the first time for elections on February 14. No elections were scheduled for December and January to allow the new system to be installed and to train precinct workers.
The new scanners will still read paper ballots, but more data from the ballots will be available to the public online and faster than before. "We're going to have far more detail than we've ever been able to show before," Ziriax said. "We'll be able to drill down and see which precincts haven't reported."
With the ballots used in Oklahoma for the two decades, voters marked their choice by connecting the broken arrow next to the name of the candidate or the choice for a state question. The only significant change voters will notice with the new ballots is that instead of drawing a line connecting an arrow, voters will fill in a rectangular box next to the choice. And, the box will be at the left of the choice instead of to the right.
Because voting machines that connect through phone lines or computer Ethernet connections might be insecure, there will be no change in the process where precinct workers physically deliver the results to their county election board. After the polling place closes and the last ballot is scanned, a flash drive-like device will be removed from the voting machine and taken to the county election board office where it is plugged into a computer and results are uploaded.
The new system will also allow disabled Oklahomans to vote without assistance. In the past, a blind voter would have to bring someone to assistant, or ask a precinct worker to read the ballot aloud and then mark the ballot as the voter instructed. As a temporary solution, the state had implemented a phone-in voting system for disabled voters in the 2010 federal election cycle, at a cost of $1.2 million. With the new system, disabled voters will use an electronic pad attached to the voting machine. The voter will turn a dial to scroll through the ballot and press another button to cast their votes using Braille. The machine will also include instructions in Braille and offers headphones for people who cannot read. The machines are also equipped with a device allowing paraplegic voters to use their sip and puff devices to vote.
VOTER ID
In 2010, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 746 aimed at combating election fraud by requiring voters to show proof of identity. More than 30 states have similar voter identification laws. The measure was placed on the ballot by the Legislature after Gov. Brad Henry vetoed a bill with similar requirements. The law, which went into effect July 1, 2011, requires all registered voters to prove their identity before voting in person at the precinct polling place on election day, or during early voting at the County Election Board.
To prove your identity, you may show any document issued by the United States, the State of Oklahoma, or a federally recognized tribal government. The document must include your name, a photograph of you, and an expiration date that is later than the election in which you are voting. Acceptable documents include an Oklahoma driver license, Oklahoma Identification Card, United States passport, or United States military identification. A tribal membership card may be used if it includes your name, a photograph, and an expiration date. An Oklahoma Identification Card issued to a person who is 65 years old or older is valid as proof of identity for voting even though it does not have an expiration date. In lieu of the above forms of identification, the Voter Identification Card issued by the County Election Board is valid as proof of identity even though it does not include a photograph or an expiration date. The law requires that your name on your proof of identity must match your name in the Precinct Registry.
If you fail to show proof of identity, you may still vote by provisional ballot. Voters who cast provisional ballots are required to fill out and sign an affidavit that explains why their provisional ballot should be counted. Provisional ballots are sealed inside special envelopes and are not put through the voting device. Following the day of the election, County Election Board officials will investigate the information provided by the voter on the affidavit and either will approve the provisional ballot for counting or will reject it based on the outcome of that investigation. In order for a provisional ballot to be approved for counting, the information on the affidavit must match the information in the voter's registration record.
Those who vote by absentee ballot either have their signatures on their affidavits notarized or have them witnessed by two people. The law considers the notarization or witnessing sufficient to establish the identity of an absentee voter.
NEW ELECTION DATES
The deadline to file for office in 2012 will be April 20, over one month earlier than in past elections. Legislation which passed the Oklahoma Legislature last year, shifts several election dates in order to comply with provisions of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act passed by Congress in 2009. The federal bill requires states to provide absentee ballots to military and other overseas voters 45 days before an election. Shifting the dates of the candidate filing period and the elections will provide enough time to prepare absentee ballots and send them to overseas voters. Oklahoma's Primary Election date will change to the last Tuesday in June, instead of the last week in July. For the 2012 election, the date will be June 26. For those seats in which no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the Runoff Primary Election will be held on the last Tuesday of August. The date for 2012 will be August 28. The General Election will be unaffected and will be November 6.
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