Local

Voter fraud not in evidence in Oklahoma

The topic of voter fraud has been raised by the Republican presidential candidate, who has said on multiple occasions he believes the process is "rigged."

An investigation by KRMG has turned up only scattered incidents of voter fraud in the state, involving a handful of ballots in local races.

Two recent cases were actually prosecuted, one in Adair County and one in Luther, Oklahoma.

But evidence of large-scale fraud, at a level that could have any impact on a presidential election, doesn't exist.

Bryan Dean is Public Information Officer for the Oklahoma State Election Board.

"We have methods in place that will show when this happens, and it gets investigated.," he told KRMG. "It's a felony, and I don't think most people want to go to prison just to get one extra vote."

The cases that have cropped up have involved absentee ballots, not actual ballots cast in person.

Dean says Oklahoma's voting system is secure, and can't be hacked from the outside.

None of the voting machines are networked, much less connected to the Internet, he points out.

"Our voting system is not plugged into the Internet or any sort of network. You can't access it remotely, and we have a variety of technological and procedural security measures in place that would prevent somebody from tampering with machines or ballots."

He told KRMG he's been busy answering inquiries from media outlets on the issue, including national television networks who are conducting largescale investigations into the claims of fraud.

He expressed confidence in the integrity of the process.

"There's no reason to doubt the integrity of our election results. In general, the US election system is the envy of the world. And Oklahoma in particular, we think we have a very secure system. Our system's relatively new, all the machines and the computers were bought in 2012. We have a lot of security features in place that prevent wide-scale attempts to modify the outcome of an election."

Listen

news

weather

traffic

mobile apps

Everything you love about krmg.com and more! Tap on any of the buttons below to download our app.

amazon alexa

Enable our Skill today to listen live at home on your Alexa Devices!