Rogers County Election Board Stays Open Late For National Voter Registration Day

There are many thousands of Oklahomans eligible to vote, who need to register. There’s a national effort to boost registration before the presidential election cycle.

At the Rogers County Election Board - the signs were out by the street, the photo booth was ready, and so were the stickers for newly registered voters. A few came trickling in, like Darrell Hilbert, who saw the news this morning about a new effort to encourage voting.

"Well I will now because I’m getting older and I want to do what’s right," said Hilbert.

Election Board Secretary Julie Dormody has a card on file for every one of the 54,000 registered voters in Rogers County. She’d like to add more to the numbers because there are far more people who are eligible - who can’t vote because they aren’t registered.

"I’m happy to stay late and take care of people who need to be taken care of," said Dormody.

Dormody and her staff are staying late so people can come in after work, Tuesday night only but they’re open every weekday, and while the process can’t be done entirely online - the only extra step is printing out the form to mail it in.

Last year, county election boards purged registrations for people who haven’t voted in years. They anticipate some of those people will show up next year for the presidential election and be disappointed they can’t vote. But they’ve also heard a lot of excuses the one about getting jury duty isn’t even accurate.

“If you have an Oklahoma drivers license or ID, that’s where they get that, they don’t get that from the election rolls," said Dormody.

Registration can be done online for the most part. It just requires printing the form out to mail it in, and of course during business hours that can be done at any election board.