Oklahoma Co. Election Board Talks Preparing For Election, Vote Tracking System

Due to the impact of COVID-19, the country is expected to see a surge of mail-in ballots this year for the election.

Oklahoma has a tracking system for mail-in ballots.

The Oklahoma County Election board says there are a lot of misconceptions about the tracking system. They say it's not as complex as some people may think, and it's broken down into three separate updates.

People can find the tracking system on the state's voter portal website.

This first update people will get is a notification online that they received a ballot. The Oklahoma County Election Board says they sent out their ballots on Friday.

The next notification people will see is when the ballot is received back in the election board office, whether be through the mail or over the front counter.

From there, the system will simply say "in progress" until the day of the election.

"There is really no progress that will be indicated until the day of the election, when we count them. Then it will simply show counted," says Doug Sanderson, the Oklahoma County Election Board Secretary.

The election board also says with COVID-19, they are in a much better spot with people to work the polls then they were during the June elections.

Sanderson says at that time they scrambled to find people due to fears surrounding the virus.

For November, the election board says they feel more prepared to handle the hurdles COVID-19 will be bringing.

And many who were worried about working in June are back for this election.

"Now many of our regular workers have indicated they are coming back. Because they have seen how everything is operating now, everyone is trying to get back to normal," said Sanderson.