The absentee voting booth at the Oklahoma County Election Board on Lincoln Blvd. appeared to be doing a brisk business this morning.
I dropped in to cast my first-ever in-person absentee ballot in advance of Tuesday’s sales tax vote.
If the penny sales tax passes, the money raised will be used to enhance the Ford Center in anticipation of the relocation of Seattle SuperSonics NBA franchise to Oklahoma City. A work assignment will take me out of town Tuesday, so I decided to cast my vote in advance.
I’m not sure what I expected, but when I walked in about 10 a.m. there was a room full of ballot boxes and a row of precinct workers just like a normal polling place.
The only difference, instead of looking up my name in a book the workers had me fill out a form before they gave me a ballot. I did take the time to read the long description of the purpose of the sales tax, then marked my ballot and ran it through the machine that counts it.
I noticed I was voter No. 92.
Other voters came and went as I completed the process, so it was evident the issue has generated some interest.
How did I vote? Can’t tell you. It was a secret ballot.
Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter