Patience is a virtue for early voting

There were surely long-time election watchers who must have thought Sequoyah County Election Board Secretary Cindy Osborn was overly optimistic when she predicted record voter turnout for early voting that began Wednesday and continues through Saturday.

“It’s going to be big. I’m expecting large numbers,” she said as her staff prepared for the early voting period that has been expanded from three days to four.

By mid-afternoon Thursday, Dana Huggins became the 1,000th voter during the early voting period.

In 2020, Osborn recalls, about 1,500 county residents cast ballots in three days. Now that a fourth day has been added for early voting, “we may hit 1,800 this year.”

On Wednesday, the first day of in-person voting, Osborn reported at the midway point that the number of voters for the day could hit 500. At that time, the wait in line was about two hours, she said.

According to social media reports by the end of the day, as the hours ticked by, voters continued to show up and the line never seemed to get any shorter. But those in line at 6 p.m. when the polls closed, were still able to exercise their Constitutional right.

As it turned out, Osborn wasn’t optimistic enough.

History was made Wednesday at the county election board during early voting when 603 voters cast their ballots, the most in a single day for in-person voting prior to Election Day on Tuesday, according to the state election board. It was not uncommon for voters to wait in line for two hours or more both Wednesday and Thursday, and with record turnout expected throughout the four-day early voting period, voters could expect to continue to encounter long waits in line both today and Saturday.

When the election board opened Thursday, even with threatening morning skies, voters lined up down the block in a repeat of the previous day, and the expectation is that it will be more of the same today and Saturday.

By mid-afternoon Thursday, not quite to the halfway point of the 36 hours the election board offices would be open during the four-day period, Dana Huggins became the 1,000th voter for the early voting period. If turnout continues in the final 18 hours at the level of the first 18 hours, more than 2,000 voters will cast ballots.

In addition, voting was so important to 95-year-old Elton Rogers, he stood in line Thursday for the full two-hour wait.

To be sure, with all the fervor surrounding this election, patience is a virtue for voters.

“I hope that people are patient. Our workers are going to be doing all they can to help you and to make things as smooth, because I want your experience to be good. Especially first-time voters. They don’t know what to do. I want their experience to be good. I just want people to be patient,” Osborn says.

Meanwhile, voting was so important to 95-year-old Elton Rogers, he stood in line for the full two-hour wait.

“I hope there won’t be any problems at all. I know during in-house (early) voting, if we have the lines that we had before — and we’re expecting even longer lines — it was hours that people stood outside in order to vote. Some days people stood for two hours to get to vote.”

Early voting runs 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. Similar to election day, you’ll be allowed to vote as long as you’re in line by the time the polls close. And even if you requested an absentee ballot, you can still vote early or on Election Day after signing an affidavit affirming you didn’t already vote absentee.

So will a heavy turnout for early voting also mean a heavy turnout Tuesday on Election Day?

“I still think there’ll be a lot of people, but the lines won’t be like they are here, because you’ve got everybody in the county wanting to come to one location. It’s not going to be like that at the polling places, I don’t believe,” Osborn says.

Want to make the voting process as streamlined as possible? Sample ballots are available at precinct locations, and those sample ballots can be brought to the ballot box and the information transferred to an official ballot. Each precinct will also have a QR code available for voters to scan, which links to a voter portal in order to review voter registration information.

Sample ballots are also available on the Oklahoma state election board website at okelections.gov.