House Republican wants to scour voter rolls like Florida in 2000

[sazemisery]

http://www.lsb.state.ok.us/house/MEDIAHME.htm

Contact: State Rep. Mike Reynolds
Capitol: [phone]

OKLAHOMA CITY (Jan. 13, 2005) -- Thousands of convicted felons are illegally registered to vote in Oklahoma and should be purged from the rolls, a state lawmaker said today.

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In addition to addressing the problems of felons voting, Reynolds said he will seek the repeal of a state law allowing voters to sign an affidavit and vote even when their name does not appear on the voter registration rolls. He said the “challenged voter affidavit” law is unnecessary due to the use of provisional balloting and may allow votes to be cast illegally.

“You can show them a voter ID card and they’ll give you the affidavit to sign, then they give you a ballot and you can go ahead and vote,” Reynolds said. “But people can have voter ID cards even when their name has been stricken from the rolls – especially after redistricting.”

The problem with voter challenge affidavits is that people can cast a vote illegally and that vote cannot segregated from the rest of the votes cast, Reynolds said.

“It’s intermingled with all the other ballots so there’s no way to contest it later,” he said.

With provisional ballots, a ballot is placed in a sealed envelope and kept separate from other ballots until authorities confirm it was legally cast.

In a close election, Reynolds said a handful of challenged voter affidavits can make all the difference.

“If you have an election where the margin is 10 votes and there are 20 provisional ballots cast, those ballots can be contested before they are counted, so those votes won’t improperly decide the outcome of the race,” Reynolds said. “But if those same ballots were cast by people signing voter challenge affidavits, those 20 ballots are already counted before the challenge and you can’t be sure how they voted. In that scenario, the courts could be forced to order a new election.”

Reynolds said he will file legislation addressing a wide range of potential election problems in Oklahoma, including removing deceased voters from the rolls and dealing with “thousands” of Oklahomans who are registered in more than one precinct. He said there is evidence some individuals cast multiple ballots during the 2004 general election.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. If they're going to scour the rolls, then they might as well remove

duplications also, since that's how I suspect Repubs got extra votes in Florida.