On April 20, the Oklahoma Senate passed HB 1072, which lowers the petition for a previously unqualified party from 5% of the last vote cast, to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. The vote was unanimous.
Although the bill had passed the House earlier, the House version is 5% of the last gubernatorial vote, so the bill must go to a conference committee. Thanks to Richard Prawdzienski for this good news. 3% of the 2006 gubernatorial vote is 27,794 signatures.
Well, good for Oklahoma, the only state in which over the last TWO elections the only presidential choices were the Democratic and Republican nominees, without even the opportunity to vote for someone else on write-in. Richard, where will Oklahoma rank in ballot-access toughness if this bill passes in its Senate form?
This is great news!! I hope that the House allows the changes, and helps ease the petitioning process for the people of OK.
It will still be, I think, the toughest state for presidential candidates (in terms of the percentage of the population needing to sign a petition).
Wonderful.
It’s not perfect (27,000 is still a lot of signatures for a state the size of Oklahoma), but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.