A tornado that tore through the Oklahoma Panhandle on Sunday night damaged the roof and collapsed a wall of the Keyes Community Center in Cimarron County, forcing election officials to move the polling place that was due to open there on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. The damage was documented in a National Weather Service damage survey, and county officials moved the vote to a replacement site after judging the building unsafe. Weather reporting put the tornado's peak winds at about 100 mph.
Source: News 9, Oklahoma City
Storm damage on Sunday night forced the polling place change in Cimarron County, Oklahoma State Election Board spokesperson Misha Mohr confirmed. "Voters will be able to vote on Election Day, regardless of the situation," Mohr told News 9 in a statement.
How to check whether your polling place moved
The State Election Board posts emergency changes at the top of its website, under a link labelled "emergency polling place changes," covering locations moved because of severe weather or other unforeseen circumstances. Mohr said the board will post changes online and encourage affected locations to share updates through social media, and signs will also direct voters to replacement locations at any changed site. Oklahoma County election officials told News 9 they will contact local news outlets to help spread the word if changes become necessary.
Counties also have backup plans if a polling place loses power. The Oklahoma County Election Board has generators that can keep polling places running for a few hours during an outage, an official told News 9, and the county also has an emergency ballot bin available. The State Election Board handles polling place changes when storm damage makes a move necessary, and it is working with the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management and county election boards, which are in turn working with their local emergency managers. "We are aware of the risk of severe weather and are monitoring the situation closely. County election boards have contingency plans in place," Mohr said.
The weather was not Oklahoma's only Election Day problem. On Tuesday morning, the Oklahoma County Election Board reported voting machine problems at multiple precincts; officials said affected ballots were being secured in locked emergency bins and would still be counted on Tuesday while technicians worked to fix the issues, according to News 9's Election Day live coverage.
The same storm system disrupted voting in other states
Oklahoma was one of several states where weather rewrote the Election Day map. In Utah, Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson issued a Declaration of Emergency Election Accommodations for San Juan County, hit by repeated floods: voters there who cannot reasonably travel to a polling place or drop box can receive and return their ballot electronically, an option normally reserved for military and overseas voters, with requests due by 5 p.m. and ballots sent by 8 p.m. local time. "We want every eligible voter in San Juan County to be able to cast a ballot," Henderson said.
In southwest Colorado, voters in La Plata and Archuleta counties who cannot safely reach a voting center can request an emergency ballot and return it electronically under a state law used for natural disasters, the Colorado Secretary of State said. Archuleta County closed a voter center and a drop box in Pagosa Springs because of flood risk and opened new locations.
In Arizona, two of Maricopa County's vote centers closed for about two hours on Monday, the last day of early voting, because of power problems after record rain; both reopened, and all Election Day sites opened as planned, county officials said.
Check the "emergency polling place changes" link on the Oklahoma State Election Board website before you travel, follow the signs posted at any moved site, and allow extra time — polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Background: November tornadoes are uncommon in Oklahoma, whose main tornado season runs through spring, but fall storms can and do produce them — which is why the State Election Board keeps emergency polling-place procedures ready even for an autumn election. Cimarron County, in the far western Panhandle around the town of Keyes, is one of the state's most rural counties, where a single community center can serve as the only polling place for miles.
What happens next: polls close at 7 p.m. in Oklahoma, and ballots secured in emergency bins during the morning machine problems are to be counted Tuesday, officials said. The State Election Board says any further emergency changes will be posted on its website as they happen, and the Cimarron County replacement site will serve Keyes-area voters for the rest of Election Day.