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Campaigning is illegal at Oklahoma City poll sites
Election officials discourage the wearing of partisan apparel when voting in elections.
Doug Sanderson, secretary of the
Oklahoma County Election Board, said a few people in favor of and against MAPS 3 have worn campaign buttons and T-shirts as they participated in early voting at the election board offices Friday and Monday.
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Wearing such things violates a law preventing electioneering within 300 feet of a ballot box.
"Someone that goes in with a T-shirt on, is it technically a violation? Yes,” Sanderson said.
"But as a practical matter we cannot turn someone away or prevent them from voting.”
Sanderson said election workers have to make a judgment call.
"What we look for is people who are intentionally trying to draw attention to themselves,” Sanderson said. "If we think they hung around after they voted and tried to influence people, we will turn them over to the district attorney for prosecution.”
Sanderson said campaign workers might ask people to remove buttons but calling attention to the problem usually just makes the problem worse.
"The better thing to do is just process them and get them out of the polling place as quickly as possible,” Sanderson said. "Still, we would say no, don’t wear any type of election paraphernalia to the polling place.”
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