Election Board Finds 'Reasonable Explanations' In Most 'Dead Voter' Cases Cited By World

State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax today issued the following statement:

The State Election Board staff has been investigating the ten “deceased voters” identified by the Tulsa World who were recorded as voting.

So far we have found reasonable explanations in 9 of these cases. The tenth is still under investigation.

Here is the gist of what we have found so far:

In two of the cases, the voters died after voting by absentee ballot, but before the election. These ballots are valid and legal according to state law.

In the case of Louise Marie Chitwood, the late Bennington woman featured in the Tulsa World’s Sunday article, paper records show that another voter mistakenly signed the wrong line on the precinct registry. This led to a data entry error when the county election board staff entered the voter history in the state voter database credit for the 2008 general election.

Three other cases involved similar circumstances to Ms. Chitwood’s: Voters signed the wrong line on the precinct registry, resulting in errors when the voter history credit was entered into the state database following the election.

In another case, a deceased voter had the same name as his son. Paper records no longer exist for that election, but it is likely that the son or another voter signed the wrong line on the precinct registry.

In two other cases, paper records indicate that there was not a signature next to the deceased voters’ names on the precinct registry. It appears that data entry errors in the state voter database were responsible for these voters incorrectly being given credit for voting.

One case remains under investigation by the State Election Board.

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