Earlier today, Oklahoma Democratic gubernatorial candidate Drew Edmondson did what lots of old people do and went down to the election board to vote early.
Naturally, the media was there to get the obligatory "Candidate Voting in Election" sound bites and photographs. That includes News 9's political reporter Aaron Brilbeck. He made sure to get this photo of Drew Edmondson filling out his ballot.
About an hour or two after he tweeted the photo, Brilbeck quickly deleted the tweet and replaced it with this shot from a different angle.
He did this because – after a quick zoom in and a bit of research – you can determine that Drew Edmondson, the Democratic Nominee for Governor, apparently voted for Republican Mike Hunter in the Attorney General race.
Check it out...
I first rotated the photo to make the ballot vertical and zoomed in several-hundred percent. Although the names are illegible, you can clearly see where Drew scribbled-in a box on his ballot.
I then downloaded Drew's sample ballot from the election board. Since I couldn't make out the names, I compared the lines and spacing from the sample ballot to the lines and spacing on Aaron's photo:
After a quick review, it's pretty obvious that Drew Edmondson, a Democratic party loyalist who's been criticized in campaign ads by Kevin Stitt for his connection to the Clintons, voted for Mike Hunter – a Republican who worked under Scott Pruitt and was appointed by Mary Fallin to be Oklahoma's Attorney General – instead of the Democratic nominee Mark Myles.
In all honesty, I don't think Drew voting for a Republican is a big deal. Yeah, it goes to show that Drew has more in common with the conservative Oklahoma establishment than he or his handlers want to admit, but I also think it's refreshing to see politicians cross party lines and vote for who they want. Drew better hope that lots of Republicans in Oklahoma feel the same way.
What is a big deal, though, is that Dopey Aaron Brilbeck took a photo of Drew's ballot and shared it to social media! His gaffe, along with our investigation of it, is why the media can't have nice things! I called the election board, and although it's still against the law for Oklahomans to take ballot selfies, it is still okay for the media to go inside a precinct and take photos. They're obviously not supposed to photograph ballots, but either way, how's that for a double-standard?
Anyway, early voting is available at your county election board through this Saturday. Regardless of who you are voting for in the Attorney General's race, go vote. Just make sure Aaron Brilbeck isn't there snooping around and taking photos.
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Editor's Note:
Not too long after this article was published, the Edmondson campaign issued a classic non-denial denial on Facebook:
Interesting. We never implied that Edmondson didn't publicly endorse Myles. We simple shared evidence that seems to show Edmondson voted for Mike Hunter. Hmmn...
