By Robert Barron, Staff Writer
Garfield County voters turned out in huge numbers Tuesday to cast their ballots in the historic 2008 presidential election that saw Democrat Barack Obama elected.
A total of 22,750 people voted in Garfield County, either at their polling places or by absentee ballot, representing 75.5 percent of registered voters. By comparison, 55 percent of registered voters voted in the 2002 gubernatorial election in which Brad Henry was elected.
Tuesday’s turnout, though, was not the largest turnout in county history. Garfield County Election Board Secretary Lue Ann Root said the highest turnout in the county occurred four years ago, when George W. Bush was elected to his second term and 76 percent of registered voters cast ballots.
However, there were more registered voters to cast ballots this year, as the total Garfield County registration reached 31,868. That number is up from 29,440 in January.
There are 10,783 registered Democrats, 18,171 registered Republicans and 2,914 registered independents.
Precinct 302, North Garland Church of Christ, is the largest precinct in the county with 3,183 registered voters. The high numbers were a chore for the new county election board staff, but Root said they had a lot of help from seasoned volunteers and precinct workers.
“I anticipated a lot of work and time,” Root said. “We worked a very long time in preparation, but we had awfully good help.”
The final box came in at 8:35 p.m. after polls closed at 7 p.m.
The sheer numbers of voters created a problem. In-person absentee voting was heavier than usual. Friday, election board workers processed 1,065 ballots, Saturday another 616 and 1,160 on Monday. But Root said in spite of long waits all voters were pleasant to each other and to the election board staff.
“If there was someone who couldn’t stand up very long, people let them go ahead of them in line. They were very considerate,” she said.
Total, there were more than 3,800 absentee ballots cast.
The biggest problem experienced during elections is complexity, said Michael Clingman, secretary of the Oklahoma State Election Board. Oklahoma’s system is simple, but is old and that caused some slowness around the state Tuesday.
Statewide numbers were within 1,000 of the votes cast in 2004, just over 1.4 million. The percentage in 2004 was 68 percent of registered voters, and this year it totaled 67 percent.
Clingman said Republican John McCain, who carried Oklahoma, got within 1,500 votes of the number received by Bush in 2004.
“It was almost a mirror election to 2004,” Clingman said.
There were 10 or 11 problems around the state with voting machines, he said. Most were minor, and the machines were swapped out within a half hour. In Cleveland County, one precinct had to be recounted Tuesday night due to voting machine problems. Clingman said it would take $25 million to $30 million to replace the state’s aging vote-counting machinery, but the election board has not found a system it likes.
