Former county elections chief receives deferred sentence
Wanda Armold (Photo provided)
By Jacob Sturm
news@mustangpaper.com
Former Canadian County elections chief, Wanda Armold, received a one-year deferred sentence for failing to follow established procedures of auditing the 2020 primary election on Nov. 3 of 2020.
According to the affidavit, Armold also failed to initiate a follow up audit of the results on Nov. 6 of the same year, resulting in 1,272 votes of Mustang polling precinct 303 not being counted for the certified votes.
The case was investigated by the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office.
The affidavit provided for the case, written by Lt. Scott Kendrick, indicated Armold, who is 76, had a consensual interview where she admitted to not performing the required audit and claimed it was because “it was a long election, and everyone was tired”.
The required audits did not occur until Nov. 17 of 2020, despite the election results being certified on Nov. 10 according to the affidavit. The document also indicated there is no mechanism in place to recertify or decertify an election in Oklahoma.
The crime is in violation of Title 26, Section 16-114 of the Oklahoma State Statutes, which states: “Any member or employee of a county election board, absentee voting board or any precinct official who willfully fails to perform his or her lawful duty shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Following her plea of guilty to the charge of failure to perform duties, Armold is prohibited from working for/or volunteering for an Election Board, or any public office. She was also ordered to pay $1,272.00, equating to $1 per uncounted vote, and an additional $30.00 for a victim’s compensation assessment along with the court costs.
Failure to perform duties is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than a year and/or a fine not exceeding $10,000.
Unfortunately, Canadian County Elections Board refuses to put in safeguards to ensure that only electoral staff has access to all of our voting machines etc. They refuse to put electronic access control on secured areas that would tell us who and when individuals enter, as well as keep people that are not authorized. Although no security system is perfect, they refuse to do even the minimum to “keep honest people honest.” While they do have locks on their doors, they have no way of producing any reports to show who accesses the building or the room where all the ballot machines are stored. If, God forbid, we have fiasco like many states did, there would be no way to find those who tampered with the equipment or changed out ballots. To protect voters rights and the accuracy of our equipment, the Election Board should desire to show transparency in all their dealings and do whatever necessary to prevent fraud, and to find the culprits in the case of fraud. That cannot be done with little to no surveillance and no record of who has access and when they access secured parts of the building. Most any access control system will list all entries and exits of individuals and the times of those occurrences which would help in the identification and conviction of those who intend to “fix” our elections.
Unfortunately, Canadian County Election Board still has done little to ensure that our elections are protected. I for one have to wonder why.
Jason