A voting machine stopped working for an hour and a half, poll workers stated at the 25th precinct in Tulsa County today. This affected a small number of voters in North Tulsa neighborhoods near Suburban Acres Library on Garrison Avenue.
Voter Xavier Barnes stated that he didn’t have the same voting experience as in years past.
“New precinct, I had never been there before,” Barnes told the Black Wall Street Times. “I typically voted at a church with a lot of room and space, but today at Suburban Acres Library the space was somewhat limited.”
Barnes says he stayed in line for over an hour and a half before a poll worker placed his ballot to the side when he went to submit his ballot. Barnes says he had no way of knowing whether his vote was counted before he left the library, or what number of voters he was.
“I gave my ballot to a regular worker who I assumed worked there, took my ballot, told me thank you for coming out and my vote will be counted at some point when the machine is up,” Barnes says. “So, I don’t know how many people voted before me, if my vote was counted, or what happened to it.
Poll worker responds after voting machine malfunction
Poll worker Nathaniel Vance said there was no issue in moving the line of voters along regardless of the interruption. Once the machine was back up and running, the ballots were counted, and things ran smoothly.
Tulsa County Election Board Communications Coordinator Ronnie Pierce says it’s rather common for a machine to go down during an election. They have a procedure to follow when things like this happen.
“It’s actually a fairly common occurrence,” Pierce says. “Every single election we have a few, one to three machines go down per election. If something happens to one of the machines, we have a tech support group. They are contacted immediately and voting stops so we can run out there within 10 minutes and get another machine up and running.”
Ballot counting process
Pierce says the process of making sure each ballot is counted begins with putting the uncounted ballots in a bin to be counted at the end of the day.
“Usually at that point, there is only one person whose ballot didn’t go through,” Pierce says. “If there’s only one voter he or she may choose to wait until that machine is brought in, but the contingency plan is to put it in a bin underneath for counting at the end of the day.”
For extra measure, after election day, the Tulsa County Election Board has a process where the registration group performs voter credit to make sure that the number of ballots matches the number of people who signed the precinct registry.
Voter Renee Benson was able to vote in the election after the machine was working.
“I believe it’s very important, because where we come from, as our culture, that we get this opportunity to have our voice to be spoken out loud, and it’s just a great thing to take this opportunity to express that,” Benson said.
Barnes also shared how it would be a disservice to African American ancestors who died on the frontlines fighting for the right to vote if black voters don’t take advantage of their civic duty.
“So many of our people died and fought for the struggle for me to have that opportunity,” Barnes says. “Who wins is irrelevant as far as the fact that my loved ones died for me to have that opportunity, so for me not to take advantage of that opportunity is disrespectful for the entire struggle and the cause for what so many of our people died for.”