Politics
Oklahoma voter portal glitch lasted hours on final registration day, board says
A data-interface problem affected the state’s online voter registration portal for a few hours on Oct. 9, the deadline to register for the Nov. 3 election. Election officials said 1,906 applications were submitted that day, including nearly 800 after the issue was fixed, while the campaign of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Cyndi Munson said it had heard from about 30 people reporting trouble.
An interface problem interrupted some online voter registration attempts in Oklahoma for a few hours on Oct. 9, the last day to register for the Nov. 3 general election, the State Election Board said Monday.
The problem involved communication between the Oklahoma Voter Registration System and Service Oklahoma’s data, according to the board. Officials said it was resolved and applications were successfully submitted afterward.
The board recorded 1,906 electronic registrations through the OK Voter Portal on Friday. Nearly 800 came in after the fix — about 40% of that day’s total — Secretary of the State Election Board Paul Ziriax said.
“We regret that there was a brief issue with the interface, but it appears to have had a minimal impact on voter registration applications,” Ziriax said, thanking Service Oklahoma and the Office of Management and Enterprise Services for their response.
The campaign of Cyndi Munson, the Democratic nominee for governor, said it had heard from Oklahomans who reported being unable to complete online registration. Campaign manager Joe Hartman said the campaign received about 30 messages, emails and calls about the issue, most during the preceding couple of weeks.
Hartman said the number stood out to him based on his 24 years working in Oklahoma elections. The board, however, said reports of routine user mistakes and legal restrictions should not be confused with the temporary technical problem.
Ziriax said some registration attempts fail when applicants enter an address that differs from the one on their driver’s license, which state law does not permit. He said such cases were unrelated to the portal’s communication issue.
The episode occurred on the final day for voters to submit applications ahead of the November election, when timely access to registration is especially consequential. The board said hundreds of applications were filed after service was restored; the information provided did not specify how many individual applicants were unable to register because of the outage.