Judge told of voting irregularities in contested Creek County sheriff election

SAPULPA, Okla. (AP) _ Allegations of voting irregularities in the Creek County sheriff's race brought a second recount Wednesday of ballots from two precincts. <br><br>Sheriff Larry Fugate challenged

Wednesday, November 22nd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAPULPA, Okla. (AP) _ Allegations of voting irregularities in the Creek County sheriff's race brought a second recount Wednesday of ballots from two precincts.

Sheriff Larry Fugate challenged the election results after losing by 14 votes to Republican Steve Toliver on Nov. 7. A recount last week added eight votes to Toliver's lead.

On Tuesday, Creek County District Judge Donald Thompson ordered a recount of vote cards for two precincts in which last week's manual recount total exceeded the number of votes cast on Election Day.

The recount was held early Wednesday. At a hearing later in the morning, an election official testified that as many as 48 spoiled ballots were inadvertently included in last week's recount. Spoiled ballots are those that are rejected by a ballot machine because of an unclear or ambiguous vote. A voter with a spoiled ballot is given a new ballot to cast.

Thompson recessed the hearing until next Tuesday and said he expected to make a decision next week.

Fugate, 48, alleges that enough votes were subject to irregularities to change the election's outcome.

He first raised allegations that voters in some Bristow and Slick precincts were denied the right to vote when a shortage of ballots forced them to cast sample ballots or write their picks on pieces of paper.

``Certainly, the court has a lot of information in front of it,'' said Tom Lane, an attorney for Toliver, a Sapulpa police lieutenant. ``But the evidence was there that Mr. Toliver is going to be declared the winner.''

Allen Mitchell, an attorney for Fugate, said because of the alleged irregularities, it is impossible to determine with mathematical certainty who should be declared the winner.

On Tuesday, nine witnesses, several of whom were precinct workers, testified that sample ballots and spoiled ballots were mixed into official ballot transfer cases at precincts.

Convicted felon Preston Montgomery testified that he voted via absentee ballot in the general election. Montgomery pleaded guilty in July to unlawful possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Oklahoma state law permits felons to vote, but they cannot register to vote until a period of time ``equal to the original judgment and sentence has expired.''

Barbara Mallory testified that she voted absentee on Nov. 3 and voted again on Election Day.

Attorneys spent most of their time questioning Creek County Election Board Secretary Joy Naifeh, a former assistant secretary of the state Election Board.

Upon reviewing her records, Naifeh testified that one person might have voted twice and that it couldn't be determined whether another voter cast two ballots.