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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Dutcher Asks, 'LWV To Support Voter ID?'

Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs executive and blogger Brandon Dutcher asks today if the League of Women Voters now will support voter ID legislation in light of the Tulsa World's discovery of the dead casting ballots last year.

"One has to assume the answer is yes," Dutcher blogs. "After all, League spokesman Gloria Caldwell said last month that 'if there were any evidence of voter impersonation in Oklahoma elections, the League of Women Voters would be first in line supporting this kind of [voter ID] legislation, but proponents cannot identify one single case.'

"Now that the Tulsa World has found that as many as 429 dead Oklahomans are still registered to vote, and that as many as 10 have voted postmortem since 2004, surely a League press release is imminent."

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Problem: Tulsa World Finds Dead Voters

Louise Marie Chitwood, a Bennington woman born in 1922, voted on Nov. 4 of last year, according to records.

Perhaps it was no surprise to some. Chitwood voted 15 times since 2000, Oklahoma State Election Board data show. And she had volunteered at Bennington’s voting booths for about 20 years, said Harold Chitwood, Chitwood’s husband.

But Chitwood died in 2006, two years before the election board showed her final ballot was cast. Since 2004, as many as 10 Oklahomans apparently voted after their death, a Tulsa World investigation found. Half of those votes were cast during last year’s elections.

None were made in Tulsa County.

The World also found as many as 429 dead Oklahomans are still registered as voters throughout the state.

Typically, state and county boards of elections remove the deceased from voter rolls as soon as possible.

Read the complete story in Sunday's Tulsa World.

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