Osage County Election Board Apologizes For Lines, Highlights Need For Workers

Why did hundreds of Osage County voters in Tulsa have to wait more than three hours to vote on Election Day?

The county's election board said they just didn’t have the resources to spare.

The precinct at Transformation Church got all the attention Tuesday night because lines of voters wrapped all the way around the building. Osage County officials say that it won't happen again.

It took Anika Ture all afternoon to cast her vote.

"Yeah, three hours and about 22 minutes," she said.

It was the same story for hundreds of other voters at Transformation Church. A few of them got so frustrated they eventually walked away.

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"I mean, you see this, you're like, 'Heck no.' You know? I almost did that, but I was like, 'No, I'm going to go ahead and bite the bullet,'" Ture said.

While frustrations ran high, some voters like Patricia Profit tried to see the glass half-full.

"They gave me some cheese crackers and some water, thank the Lord for that," she said.

The Osage County Election Board got so many complaints they sent more resources.

Around 6 p.m., one hour before the polls closed, sheriff's deputies arrived with six extra voting booths, processing voters into two separate lines.

Election Board Secretary Andrea Conner apologized for the delay.

"Wanna say, you know, we're sorry. That was not our intention to keep people from voting. That's not - we took it to heart, we really did," she said.

Conner said her office could only do so much. She said there were no more precinct workers to send to Transformation Church, as not enough people volunteered.

Conner said her office will work to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but, she encourages Osage Countians to follow the edict - be the change you want to see, and volunteer to be a precinct worker.

"The women that were there last night, my heart went out for them. They did the best that they could. You got to process one person at a time, and they did the best with what they had," Conner said.

Everyone in line at Transformation Church was able to vote by 10 p.m. Wednesday night.