Thursday, September 10, 2009

Election Night WTH? Moment

At our watch party, my supporters and I were glued to the television awaiting each change in the polling numbers. We had two televisions going in different rooms; one on KJRH Channel 2 and the other on KOTV Channel 6. At one point, around 8:15 in the evening, KOTV locked up with about 55% of the vote counted. Same for KJRH.

We went to the radio in my office and tuned into KRMG, on which Michael Bates and Dan Potter were commenting on the election. They were reporting me with 37% of the vote, with a chance to still win the race if the numbers that the TV stations were reporting didn't include west, east and north Tulsa. Suddenly, you could hear Dan Potter seem a little perplexed as my percentage dropped to 30%. It was about this time that we thought, that's it, we've lost. Within five minutes, KRMG had called the race for Bartlett and I called Dewey to concede just after that.

Wednesday night, my wife and I decided to watch Tuesday's episode of America's Got Talent, which she had recorded on our DVR. While watching the show, the numbers from the previous night's election were scrolling along the bottom of the screen. I was suddenly struck by an odd feeling about one of the sets of figures. I provide a screen capture of those numbers below.

As you can see, it shows that with 54% of the vote in,
I was receiving 6,665 votes to Bartlett's 9,072. I officially received a total of 7,004 votes on the night. That would mean, that in the remaining 46% of the precincts, I would only receive another 339 votes, to Bartlett's more than 3,000! I stopped dead in my tracks and paused the DVR. "In what part of the city would I only get less than 10% of the vote," I asked?

KJRH stayed locked in at 55% for some time after this was reported. Then it jumped to 69%. I froze the picture and took a second screen capture. (See below).

As you can see, I dropped from 37% of the vote, to 31%. That isn't too unbelievable with the passage of an additional 14 percent of returns coming in. But check out the vote totals.

I went from 6,665 votes with 54% reporting, to 5,269 votes with 69% reporting. That is a DROP of 1,396 votes!

I will be contacting KJRH to see if anyone can explain to me what happened. Stay tuned for breaking developments.


DelGiorno-Nashville said...

Nice to see that the "Good Old Boy" network in Tulsa refuses to be out performed by ACORN thugs!

Chris, I am sorry Tulsa failed to elect the right choice again, even more sorry, if this is another example of corruption & voter fraud!

bill said...

Sorry Chris, Keep your head up.Things will get better. maybe you can get back in radio. just what happened. let me know if i can help Immigration Bill

ideaman said...

Maybe talk to a good lawyer about this. I dread having "Bailout Bartlett" for mayor. Any good independent candidate that I could endorse?