Tulsa Election 2024: October 2024 Archives
Tulsa County voters have one county-wide race and one county commission seat on the November 5, 2024, ballot. In both races, the Republican is the better candidate.
The County Clerk is responsible for record keeping for the county, including deeds, liens, mortgages, and other records pertaining to real property, agendas and minutes of authorities, boards, and commissions, and financial records for all county offices. Tulsa County Clerk office has five divisions: Accounting, Administration and Support, Budget and Finance, Payroll, and Real Estate Services, plus the executive staff. It's a large office with a lot of responsibility.
Incumbent Tulsa County Clerk Michael Willis, the Republican nominee, has improved that office by leaps and bounds in his eight years as clerk, making more information easily accessible to the public on the Tulsa County Clerk website. As someone who delves into local history, I appreciate the easy access to subdivision plats and historic deed indexes. The one aspect that could be improved is access to backup materials that are provided to public officials in connection with agenda items. Often it is impossible to tell what an agenda item is really all about in the absence of backup materials. The City of Tulsa does a fairly good job of this, as do public records in other states; Tulsa County could do better.
Many Republicans, including myself, were disappointed in Willis's choice to stay silent during the Tulsa mayoral primary, in which conservative Republican Brent Van Norman fell just short of making the runoff. As a consequence, Tulsa Republicans have a Hobson's choice between two Democrats, one of whom is Willis's old boss, Karen Keith. Willis has endorsed Keith over Monroe Nichols in the runoff; a Keith mailer this week features endorsements from Willis, former County Commissioner John Smaligo, County Treasurer John Fothergill, and Fred Davis, campaign commercial producer and nephew of Jim Inhofe. (The other side of this mailer uses of a photo of the late Sen. Jim Inhofe with Keith, inscribed, "You Karen Keith are not only my favorite Democrat but my hero.")
Nevertheless, Michael Willis has done a great job as county clerk, and I'd like him to continue serving in that role.
In Oklahoma, every county has three commissioners, elected by district to serve four-year terms, with elections for District 1 and 3 commissioners in gubernatorial election years and for District 2 commissioners in presidential election years. Tulsa County District 2 includes the western arm of the county, midtown Tulsa, Tulsa west of the river, and the City of Jenks. A County Commissioner is responsible for maintaining the county road network in his district and also sits on boards overseeing general county government.
This is a ticket-splitting district. Of the 83,782 registered voters who have gone to the polls in the last four years, 37,836 are Republican, 31,130 are Democrat, 14,132 are Independent, 684 are Libertarian. Of the 14,145 who have registered since November 2022 but have never voted, 5,613 are Independent, 4,846 are Republican, 3,422 are Democrat, and 264 are Libertarian.
In the 2022 election, Democrat governor nominee Joy Hofmeister got 54% of the District 2 vote over Kevin Stitt, but Republican Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell got 58%. Congressman Kevin Hern had 53% over Adam Martin. Jena Nelson Sen. Lankford got 50% to 46% for Madison Horn in Lankford's bid for re-election, but Kendra Horn edged out Markwayne Mullin, 48.6% to 48.0%. Democrat State Superintendent candidate Jena Nelson had 54% over Ryan Walters, but the district supported Republican Todd Russ for State Treasurer and Leslie Osborn for Labor Commissioner.
The 16-year Democrat incumbent Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith is running for Mayor of Tulsa, leaving an open seat. State Rep. Lonnie Sims won a hard-fought runoff to become the Republican nominee. Sims's current State House District 68 overlaps with a large section of District 2. I am underwhelmed by his legislative voting record, as rated by conservative organizations, including his co-authorship of what became SQ 833, and I endorsed his opponent Melissa Myers in the primary and runoff, and he's using the same campaign consulting firm as Democrat Karen Keith. Nevertheless, Sims is the better choice in the general election. Sims has worked closely with Tulsa County government to fund repair of the Arkansas River levees, which are all within County Commission District 2. He is familiar with the duties of the County Commission and is more conservative than his opponent by a long chalk.
The Democrat nominees in these two county elections are both young women who embrace the usual leftist causes and appear to have no background or knowledge that would qualify them to serve in the offices they seek. My impression is that they are running not to win, but to gain some campaign experience and name recognition and to force Republicans to spend money on these seats that might otherwise go to legislative and local races. They may be able to parlay that experience and exposure into a successful future run for a state legislative or city council seat.
The Democrat nominee for Tulsa County Clerk, Don Nuam, is a newcomer to politics, and a relative newcomer to the United States. Born in Myanmar, she has been a Tulsa resident since 2008, is a graduate of Jenks High School, and is active in Burmese cultural organizations. She is working on a master's degree in psychology. Her LinkedIn profile says that she works as a VITA Specialist for Goodwill; the acronym seems to refer to their Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. She writes, "While I may not have traditional experience in the role of County Clerk, what I lack in experience, I make up for in enthusiasm, dedication, and a fresh perspective."
The Democrat nominee for District 2 Tulsa County Commissioner is Sarah Gray, who defeated Keith's Chief Deputy Jim Rea in the primary and former Tulsa City Councilor Maria Barnes in the runoff. Gray's website doesn't exhibit much awareness of the responsibilities of the office, although she does have a page summarizing the scandal at the juvenile justice center. Her Ballotpedia profile states, "I work in communications and public relations in Tulsa and throughout Oklahoma - specializing in civic engagement, media relations, and Tribal affairs. I have a B.A. in political science and M.A. in strategic communications."
(Gray's website incorrectly states that Tulsa County overlaps the Osage reservation. The Osage reservation is underground and consists of the mineral rights of Osage County, held by the Osage Nation on behalf of its citizens, who hold headrights in its revenues. Surface rights are not part of the reservation and can be bought and sold freely. The enabling act for Oklahoma statehood required the Osage reservation to be its own county, the largest in the new state.)
Earlier this evening, I sent the following email to Karen Keith and Monroe Nichols, the two Democrats who advanced to the November 5, 2024, runoff for Mayor of Tulsa.
The idea was inspired by conversations I had with the two candidates after last month's forum hosted by Women for Tulsa at the Campbell Hotel. I pointed out to both that the Supreme Court's Castro-Huerta ruling limited the scope of the McGirt ruling and signalled that SCOTUS would likely find in favor of the State of Oklahoma and its political subdivisions should further tribal challenges to their authority reach the High Court. McGirt happened because Neil Gorsuch sided with the four SCOTUS progressives to form a majority of five, but after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and was replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, Gorsuch and the remaining three progressives only formed a minority of four in the Castro-Huerta case.
For example, say the owner of a restaurant in Tulsa, a tribal citizen, decides not to collect or remit state, county, and city sales taxes. After Oklahoma Tax Commission padlocks the door, this tribal citizen files a federal lawsuit challenging the authority of Oklahoma and its political subdivisions to collect taxes on an Indian-owned enterprise on Indian-owned land in an Indian reservation. If the case were to reach SCOTUS, the High Court as currently constituted would almost certainly uphold the taxing power of state and city, notwithstanding "reservation" status. But that would only happen if the City of Tulsa and State of Oklahoma pursue the case aggressively in the courts, even if district court and appeals court rulings go the other way. When I asked Rep. Nichols if he would defend Tulsa's power to collect sales tax, he indicated that he would, of course! This questionnaire is designed to give him and his opponent the opportunity to say so in writing and to commit themselves publicly on other issues that really ought to be no-brainers.
I will let you know if I hear back from the candidates. I will also be tweeting these questions out on X, to make sure they're seen.
To the surviving candidates for Mayor of Tulsa:
The elimination of all conservative mayoral candidates in the August 27 election has left me and a third of the city's electorate in a quandary. We will show up in large numbers on November 5 to vote for Donald Trump, Kevin Hern, and other Republican candidates, but we don't yet have a compelling reason to vote in the mayor's race. Nevertheless, if one of you is willing to commit publicly to at least some of the actions below and the other is not, it would make a difference in how conservatives vote.
I know you're busy campaigning, so I'll keep this short and simple. Please reply at your earliest convenience to the following yes/no questions. I will post the responses (or lack of response) verbatim on BatesLine.com. You can feel free to explain or elaborate, but I'm looking for a yes or no answer. The heart of each question is "will you pledge?" and the more "yes" answers you can honestly give, the more inclined conservatives will be to vote for you on November 5.
Thank you for your time.
Section A: City authority in light of McGirt
Background for questions 1 - 4: The challenge to the City's authority to tax, regulate land use, and enforce traffic laws is not likely to come from the tribal governments directly, but, as with the McGirt case, tribal citizens will file federal lawsuits seeking exemption from state and local laws, which tribal governments will join as amici curiae.
1. If a tribal citizen sues in Federal court to claim exemption from the City of Tulsa's zoning laws, will you pledge to commit the City's resources to defend in Federal court the City's power to enforce its zoning laws over all property within its municipal limits, pursuing the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States if necessary?
2. If a tribal citizen sues in Federal court to claim exemption from the City of Tulsa's traffic laws, will you pledge to commit the City's resources to defend in Federal court the City's power to enforce its traffic laws on all drivers within its municipal limits, pursuing the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States if necessary?
3. If a tribal citizen with a retail business sues in Federal court to claim exemption from collecting and remitting state, county, and city sales taxes, will you pledge to commit the City's resources to defend in Federal court the City's taxing authority within its municipal limits, pursuing the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States if necessary?
4. If property owner who is a tribal citizen sues in Federal court to claim exemption from paying ad valorem tax, will you pledge to commit the City's resources to defend in Federal court the City's taxing authority within its municipal limits, pursuing the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States if necessary?
Section B: City involvement in controversial cultural issues
5. The City Council and Mayor Bynum approved the use of Federal COVID relief funds for Amplify Tulsa to survey 15-17 year old children about their "sexual health and well-being." Will you pledge to veto any proposal that gives any funds under the City's control for the purpose of communicating with minors about sexual matters?
6. Mayor Bynum used an executive order to add "gender identity" and "gender expression" to the City's non-discrimination policy. The idea that someone can be "born in the wrong body" or "born the wrong gender" has no basis in science, and it has led vulnerable youth to damage their bodies with cross-sex hormones and surgery. Will you pledge to remove "gender identity" and "gender expression" from the City's non-discrimination policy?
7. Will you pledge to enact and enforce city policies that exclude all biological males (including purported "transwomen" and "non-binary") from private female spaces and activities, such as restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and city sports leagues?
8. Will you pledge never to require city employees to participate in Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) training sessions, which have proven to sow mistrust and division among an organization's employees?
Section C: Taxes
9. Improve Our Tulsa 3, passed in 2023, has already obligated our current sales tax and property tax rates beyond 2028. Will you pledge not to put a general obligation bond issue or sales tax proposal before the voters during your four-year term of office?
[I was manually numbering these questions, and left room for another question that I didn't end up writing. Oh, well.]
Section D: Law enforcement
11. Citizen oversight panels have been used in many cities to second-guess the split-second decisions made by police officers in the line of duty. This has reduced proactive policing, causing police officers to hesitate to act decisively against crime, leading to an increase in crime in those cities. Will you pledge to veto any proposal to create a citizen oversight panel for the Tulsa Police Department?
12. In 2020, under activist pressure, Mayor Bynum ended the Tulsa Police Department's relationship with Live PD, which showcased TPD's professionalism in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Will you pledge to authorize TPD to resume cooperation with Live PD and similar network television shows?
13. For many years, the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office has had a 287(g) agreement with ICE. According to the ICE website: "The 287(g) program allows ICE -- through the delegation of specified immigration officer duties -- to enhance collaboration with state and local law enforcement partners to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of noncitizens who undermine the safety of our nation's communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws." Will you pledge to have the Tulsa Police Department participate in the 287(g) program to the fullest extent possible for city governments?
Section E: Homelessness
14. The Housing, Homelessness & Mental Health Task Force, which oversees the $75 million in IOT3 funds set aside to address homelessness in Tulsa, does not include anyone who works directly with homeless people. Will you pledge to add leaders of Christian ministries that serve the homeless (e.g., John 3:16 Mission, City of Hope) to that task force?
15. Will you pledge to enact and enforce ordinances that prohibit camping on public property and panhandling, requiring those convicted to enter a diversion program or else face jail?
Section F: Public health
16. The mandatory closure of businesses, schools, churches, and other gathering places, and the imposition of social distancing requirements during the COVID-19 epidemic proved to be ineffective at preventing the spread of the disease but disastrous to the economic and social well-being of Tulsans. In the event of a similar respiratory pandemic, will you pledge not to seek or use emergency powers to require Tulsa businesses, churches, schools, and other gathering places to close?
17. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are now known not to prevent the spread of that virus, and its efficacy at mitigating the severity of the virus is questionable, at best short-lived and decreasing with each new variant. Severe adverse effects, including myocarditis and pericarditis in young men, have come to light. Many government workers were faced with a choice of taking the vaccine against their will or losing their jobs. Will you pledge never to mandate a vaccine as a condition of employment with the City of Tulsa?
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A parting thought: If I were to say that someone like Kevin Stitt should have twice as much say in how Tulsa is run than someone like Monroe Nichols, or that Stitt and Nichols should be treated differently if accused of a crime, because of their respective ancestry, I'd be accused of racism, and rightly so. But that is what tribal co-governance is all about. Stitt had an ancestor on the Dawes Commission roll, Francis Dawson. If I've found the right Dawson, he was enrolled with a blood quantum of 1/16. If that's Stitt's great-great-grandfather, and assuming no other Indian ancestors, that makes Stitt's blood quantum 1/256: One Cherokee ancestor 8 generations ago entitles him to special rights, regardless of the degree of engagement he has with Cherokee culture.
A couple of friends have posted links to an article alleging shenanigans in Oklahoma's voter registration records. The article is on a website known for sensationalistic headlines, but that article linked to an analysis on another site more temperate in tone, but missing important context.
The bottom line: The voter ID number patterns which the analyst found suspicious in the short time he spent with the database have explanations rooted in the history of Oklahoma's voter registration system, specifically the transition to our first statewide registration computer system in 1990 and its replacement with a newer system in 2011.
The headline on The Gateway Pundit screams "Jerome Corsi: Oklahoma Added to the List of States with Irregularities in Board of Election Voter Registration Databases Suspected of Fraud." Corsi gets off to a misleading start:
In a highly suspicious August 27 run-off mayoral election in Tulsa, two relatively inexperienced political operatives with pedigree-quality, radically woke Democratic Party credentials beat a conservative Republican CPA, attorney, businessman, and pastor with a long history of community service, in Oklahoma, by the narrowest possible margins.
It wasn't a run-off -- it was the general election, with a run-off to come in November. Karen Keith, a 16-year county commissioner and 30+ year TV news reporter and anchor endorsed by the police and firefighter unions, and Monroe Nichols, an 8-year state representative endorsed by a former mayor, two former governors, and the daily paper, are hardly inexperienced. Brent VanNorman's long history of community involvement happened in other cities and states. Corsi doesn't appear to know that this election is officially non-partisan, with no party labels on the ballot. VanNorman was one of three registered Republicans running for mayor, but the only information about the party affiliations of the candidates was on websites like this one, not on the ballot. (I wonder who fed Corsi the above characterization of the Tulsa election.)
More about the dynamics of the mayoral race below. It was impressive that VanNorman did as well as he did with so little money, no name recognition, and a standing start with only three months to introduce himself to the voters. I'm not shocked that he failed to make the runoff; I'm amazed he came so close to making the runoff and beating the one-time front-runner, and I'm frustrated with the Republicans who withheld support entirely or until it was too late to matter (Tulsa County GOP, Kevin Stitt).
Corsi quoted a New York State-based analyst named Andrew Paquette, who has been acquiring voter databases from election boards and analyzing them, focusing on patterns in voter identification numbers as a potential indicator of fraud. Corsi goes on:
Paquette has charged that State Board of Elections official voter registration databases may contain cryptographic codes of intelligence agency complexity that enable rogue actors to obtain official state voter ID numbers for non-existent fraudulently created voters in an apparently criminal scheme designed to facilitate the certification of fraudulent mail-in votes.
(I have detected irregularities in Corsi's spelling of Paquette, which he spells "Pacquette" about as often as he spells it correctly.)
The article embeds Paquette's report but doesn't link to it, which is rather dodgy. Here is Paquette's report. Paquette's report is provided on his site as non-OCRed images, which is also rather strange. Here is the beginning of his Oklahoma analysis, which is much more circumspect than Corsi's lurid prose:
I have spent literally one day looking at Oklahoma's voter rolls. Much less if you subtract the time it took to import each county's database into a master database for study. In comparison, it took weeks before the first hints of voter roll algorithms were found in Ohio and New Jersey, and even longer in New York. With the caveat that this is not enough time to yield a definitive response either way, here are a few preliminary observations:
In this entry I'm going to focus on Paquette's suspicions about Oklahoma voter ID numbers and registration dates. He created scatterplots of date of registration on the X axis and was surprised to see that the voter ID numbers don't correlate in any obvious way to registration dates before 1990:
What this plot tells us is that ID numbers generally ascend as registration dates become more recent. There is a large break in CID numbers between about 720,000,000 through 800,000,000 that occurs in 2012. This break is found in all other OK counties. The reason for this is unclear, particularly for a state with a population size that is unlikely to ever exceed the available unused numbers. A close-up of numbers on the left of the plot reveals another break in the numbers in the year 1990, after which they ascend normally. Earlier numbers do not follow a normal ascending pattern, but are found in any year from 1950-1990, regardless of number size. That is, a high number from the series is just as likely to be from 1950 as 1990, but later numbers always ascend with the year. This is different from some counties and bears further investigation (Figure 2).
Had Paquette had more time with Oklahoma's numbers (why the big hurry?) he might have noticed that a large share of voter IDs from a given county begin with the same two digits and those two digits match the sequence of the county name in alphabetical order. Adair is 01, Woodward is 77. Tulsa and Wagoner are 72 and 73, respectively. Osage is 57 and Rogers is 66. Historically, back in the days of handwritten indexes, people sorted names beginning with Mc before all other names beginning with M, because a Mc name (a Celtic patronymic) is sometimes spelled as Mac, so McClain, McCurtain, and McIntosh are 44, 45, and 46, and Major is 47. Precinct numbers are six digits beginning with the two-digit county code. (FIPS county codes follow the same order, but are all odd numbers separated by two, which I suppose allows for a new county to be added in alphabetical order without renumbering the rest.)
So a large share of Tulsa County voter IDs, 155,841 out of 390,753 in the August 8, 2024, download, begin with 72. These were all issued on or before April 18, 2011. The rest of the voter IDs begin with 80, reflecting a move to a new statewide election computer system in 2011. Existing voters kept their ID numbers beginning with a county code, but new voters were registered with numbers beginning with 80, a value that would not conflict with any existing voter ID numbers, because Oklahoma has only 77 counties.
(Here is a January 2011 story announcing selection of a vendor for the new system, an op-ed by Oklahoma State Election Board Paul Ziriax, announcing the new system from Hart InterCivic, which included new ballot scanning machines to replace those that were nearly twenty years old, a July 2011 story mentioning the model names of the old (OPTECH III-P Eagle) and new scanners (Hart InterCivic eScan A/T Paper Based Digital Ballot Scanner), December 2011 article showing the difference in ballot styles between old and new machines.)
So why do voter ID numbers after 1990 increase monotonically with registration date, but are seemingly random until 1990? Because the Oklahoma State Election Board got its first statewide computer system that year. In Tulsa County there is a break in registrations between June 15, 1990, and June 30, 1990. If you sort the Tulsa County voter file by voter ID number and filter for registrations prior to June 15, 1990, you'll find that the names are mostly in alphabetical order. The exceptions to alphabetical order are mainly women; women are more likely to change their last name after they get married, but they keep their voter ID number. For example, near the end of those pre-1990 records, I found someone I know with the last name Werner whose voter ID number falls in sequence with people named Zumwalt, which was her married name in June 1990.
My wife and I are four numbers apart, even though I registered to vote in 1981 after I turned 18, and she registered to vote in Oklahoma eight years later, after we were married in 1989. Even though our first names are close together in alphabetical order, there were once six Michael Bateses registered to vote in Tulsa County, four with different middle names, and one with the same middle name and a date of birth six months earlier in the same year. There's still one other Michael Bates -- Michael S. Bates, the retired City of Tulsa human resources director, who was also registered to vote before the 1990 computer system went online -- his voter ID is after mine and before my wife's.
What is likely is that Tulsa County Election Board took its existing alphabetized voter database and entered them into the new system in that order, from A'Neal to Zyskowski. In the current database, those numbers range from 720000002 to 720300782, and the registration dates range from June 23, 1942, to June 15, 1990. I found only three exceptions in Tulsa County, three voters with ID numbers in that range who registered in October 1990, February 1991, and October 1996. Tulsa County's population in the 1990 census was 505,289; 59.5% seems a reasonable ratio of registered voters to population. Today there are 390,753 voters, and the 2020 population was 670,653 -- 58.3%.
There are only 51,323 voter records in that range of voter ID numbers today. A lot of people die or move away in 34 years. Whoever had 720000001 must fall in one of those categories. In 2016, 77,007 voters had ID numbers in that range.
(Here is an August 1990 Associated Press story about the state's then-new election administration computer system, running on Digital Equipment Corporation computers with software by Andersen Consulting, a branch of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, a May 1990 Okmulgee Daily Times story about election board worker training and reporting that the new system will go into use on July 1, and a July 1990 Oklahoma Press Association story on the new system.)
There are 226 records in the Tulsa County database with no recorded registration date. 189 of these have their addresses redacted with asterisks; among this group I recognize the names of district judges, assistant district attorneys, and others who might be at risk from stalkers. I'm not sure how blanking registration dates helps with security for these people, but there is a correlation. The law authorizing address confidentiality is here; the rules adopted by the State Election Board are here. (30 with redacted addresses have valid registration dates in 2023 or 2024, perhaps reflecting a later tweak to the law or election board procedure.)
Of the remaining 37 with no registration date, they were all born in 1962 or earlier, and all but one are in that initial group of voters entered into the computerized system in 1990. The date may not have been entered on the original record, or perhaps was illegible when the records were entered in 1990.
There are 9 records in the Tulsa County database where the registration date is earlier than the birth date. All 9 are part of the records that were input into the system in 1990. It's reasonable to guess that these were data entry errors when transcribing from cards to computer.
So, excluding the 219 redacted records, that's 46 voters out of 390,534 with blank or impossible voter registration dates, only 12 thousandths of one percent -- 0.012%. Ideally there wouldn't be any, but the county election board would have been wrong, as they entered the existing registration rolls into the computer system in 1990, to drop a duly registered voter for lack of a legible voter registration date.
Not all counties tracked voter registration dates prior to the 1990 computer system. The Osage County roll has only 48 voters with registration dates on or before June 15, 1990. 3,168 registration dates are blank out of 29,442. Wagoner County has only 44 voters with registration dates that pre-date the 1990 computer system, and 3,802 blank registration dates out of 51,987. But Rogers County apparently tracked registration dates before the 1990 computer system: It has only 805 blank registration dates out of 64,776 voter records; 23 of that 805 belong to voters with redacted addresses.
In summary, there's nothing weird about Oklahoma voter ID numbers or registration dates that isn't explained by the history of Oklahoma's computerized election management system. There are a small number of oddities that reflect a reasonable number of clerical errors.
Another concern raised by Paquette is that purged records are not retained in the database. The definition of a purged record is that it has been removed from the database. The State Election Board does, however, provide a separate file containing all records deleted statewide in the last 24 months. I am surprised that Paquette overlooked this data source. The file I downloaded on September 30, 2024, contains 244,388 records, of which 90,381 were removed as a county transfer (removed from the database of the voter's former county), 83,701 were deleted for inactivity, 51,647 as deaths (health department, next of kin, nursing/funeral home, written notice), 7,965 were deleted as duplicates, 3,128 for felony convictions, 2,572 are labeled CONF. NOTICE - STATE or CONF. NOTICE - COUNTY (possibly indicating that a confirmation postcard to the address on record was returned with a change of address out of county or out of state), 2,518 as a state transfer, 2,254 license surrender, 222 mental incapacity. The file includes the date of deletion, ranging from October 3, 2022, to September 29, 2024.
Paquette also complains about possible clones -- records with the same date of birth and first and last name. I haven't checked this yet; that would require looking at the entire state at once, and that involves loading all 77 separate county files into one database. I'll take a look at that at a later date.
On the jump page, I've got more detail regarding the dynamics of Tulsa's mayoral race and why Jerome Corsi's description doesn't fit the facts, on the contents of Oklahoma's voter registration database, and on why I don't trust any headline on The Gateway Pundit.