Early Voting Reported Heavy Across State

Election boards across the state report heavy voting by in-person absentee ballots today.

The Oklahoman reports that the first voter at the Oklahoma County Election Board reportedly showed up at 4:30 a.m. and in-person absentee voting didn't start until 8 a.m.

"It's an enormous turnout today. It's even larger than four years ago at the presidential election" Oklahoma County Election Board Secretary Doug Sanderson told The Oklahoman this morning. "We may see perhaps even 5,000 people come through the lines early today."

When asked if there were any numbers yet, Sanderson said they won't be able to calculate that for some time because of the huge turnout.

"At the end of the day we might be able to give some calculation," he said, "but we're not even having time to enter the data; we're just processing voters."

For some sort of comparison, we can look to the first day of in-person absentee voting for the February primary election at the Oklahoma County Election Board -- 900 ballots were cast at that office.

In Norman, the line to vote at the Cleveland County Election Board at 7:20 a.m. was two blocks long with 82 voters lined up, one observer reported.

Officials with the Tulsa County and Stephens County election boards also report heavy early turnout. In Tulsa, election board officials said the line had been almost non-stop throughout the day, with waits of up to an hour. One official said about 400 votes per hour were being cast.

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