Oklahoma County Election Board strikes OKC city council candidate from ballot

A candidate for Oklahoma City Council has been stricken from the upcoming February ballot after a vote Tuesday by the Oklahoma County Election Board.

Chris Cowden, who filed to run for city council in Ward 2, was deemed by the board to not meet the voter registration requirements set by the Oklahoma City charter. Unless the board's decision is overturned by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Ward 2 Councilmember James Cooper, 40, will have only two opponents on the ballot in February.

The charter requires candidates for city council be registered to vote within the ward they are running for at least one year to qualify for office. According to voter registration records, Cowden, 44, was registered to vote at an address in Nichols Hills until June 30, 2022. This voter registration change, less than the required year prior to Cowden's declaration of candidacy, was the crux of Cooper's argument that Cowden be stricken from the ballot.

"We're thankful that the Oklahoma County Election Board upheld the Oklahoma City charter today [and] followed the letter of the law," said Cooper's campaign manager, Aaron Wilder.

Cooper was not present at the hearing but was represented by his attorney Denise Lawson. The motion to strike Cowden from the ballot was approved 3-to-0 by the election board.

Oklahoma City's Ward 2 encompasses a portion of northwest Oklahoma City.

Election board says city charter requirement is unambiguous

During the hearing Tuesday morning, Cowden's attorney Robert Gifford argued that the city charter is both ambiguous and overly restrictive in the registration requirement. Gifford said it is ambiguous in that the sentence regarding registration could be interpreted two different ways.

Being "a registered voter at an address within the ward for at least one year" could also be read, Gifford said, as one, being a registered voter, and two, being at an address within the ward for at least one year.

"If there's any possibility of any gray area, he should get the benefit of the doubt," Gifford said.

Lawson said it is important to read the registered voter requirement in the context of the charter's other requirements. One of them is that the candidate be a resident of Oklahoma City for at least one year. The registration and residency requirements are separate, Lawson said.

Election board Secretary Doug Sanderson said there is no ambiguity in the charter before making a motion to strike Cowden from the ballot.

"I'm reluctant to take it on, in this body, to interpret what the city charter meant to say but didn't say," Sanderson said. "To me, the intent is plain."

Gifford also said the charter was "un-American" in that it was making it more difficult to run for political office.

Cowden plans to take issue to Oklahoma Supreme Court

Cowden said the election board's decision was what he expected, but he doesn't plan to give up. Cowden will ask the Oklahoma Supreme Court to review the election board's decision.

"(The election board is) not in a position to argue the intent of the charter," Cowden said. "They're not positioned to have any sort of opinion about it. They're looking at the black and white ... A Supreme Court justice has legal wherewithal to dissect and better understand the argument than these individuals could."

In 2019, the court upheld a similar decision from the board to strike Steve Hunt from the ballot in the race for Ward 5. At the time, the city had not amended its charter to include the voter registration requirements, so the board relied on a state statute that required candidates be registered to vote at an address within the ward six months before filing for office.

Cowden unhappy about being redistricted into Cooper's ward

Cowden has been a registered voter since 1996, and though he was registered to vote at his parents' address in Nichols Hills, he said he has lived at his current address since 2017.

Voting records show Cowden voted in person while registered under the Nichols Hills address seven times between 2017 and changing his registered address in June. State law allows voters who move within the same county to vote "one last time at their previous polling place" before changing their registration, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board website.

Cowden said he did not have a comment in response to the idea that he may have committed voter fraud by voting under a registered address that was not where he lived.

Cowden's home in Ward 2 was within Ward 1 to the west until the city completed redistricting in March.

It was then, Cowden said, that he decided to change his voter registration to his home address and to run for city council. He had been satisfied with being represented by Ward 1 Councilman Bradley Carter, but did not feel the same way about Cooper.

"I wasn't motivated to (change my voter registration) until March when I was put in the ward of James Cooper, who in my opinion has wholly failed the citizens of Ward 2," Cowden said. "He has a very selfish agenda insofar as he's very focused on, to keep it specific, bike lanes and murals."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC city council candidate stricken from ballot by election board