Voting Rights

Voting access proponents staged a press conference Tuesday, saying Tulsa County and the Tulsa County Election Board aren't doing enough to communicate that early voting will take place over three days at ONEOK Field this year due to COVID-19, instead of the traditional early voting locations at the Hardesty Regional Library and the Election Board building on North Denver.

The Tulsa County Election Board is prepared to send out and get back a record number of mail-in ballots for the upcoming November election, by far the biggest contest since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

"We have mailed out as of today about 47,000. We are expecting to mail out all told between 100,000 and 130,000 absentee ballots. That is a five fold increase, and potentially a little more, over anything we’ve ever done historically," said Gwen Freeman, the election board's secretary, at a Monday press conference.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected the Oklahoma Democratic Party’s lawsuit challenging the state’s absentee voting rules.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John Dowell wrote that the state’s absentee voting rules are “reasonable, nondiscriminatory and legitimate.”

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Native American voting rights advocates are cautioning against states moving to mail-in ballots without opportunities for tribal members to vote safely in person.

In a wide-ranging report released Thursday, the Native American Rights Fund outlined the challenges that could arise: online registration hampered by spotty or no internet service, ballots delivered to rarely-checked Post Office boxes and turnout curbed by a general reluctance to vote by mail.