Oklahoma SB 668 lowers the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party in midterm years, from 5% of the last presidential vote, to 5% of the last gubernatorial vote. Even though it had passed the Senate unanimously, and had passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously, it failed to be brought up on the House floor by the April 24 deadline.

It could conceivably pass next year. Also, if there is another election law bill in conference committee, theoretically such a bill could be amended to include the contents of SB 668, but this seems very unlikely to happen. It continues to be true that the Oklahoma legislature has not voluntarily eased ballot access for newly-qualifying parties since 1924, when the legislature created a 5,000-signature petition procedure for newly-qualifying parties, simply because the 1924 legislature was aware that there was a lot of interest in putting a Farmer-Labor Party on the ballot. Prior to the 1924 law, there was no procedure for a new party to get on the Oklahoma ballot, except by having it qualify in three other states and poll at least 10% of the vote in those other states. Obviously that would have delayed recognition of the new party in Oklahoma by an entire election cycle.

The old 5,000-signature requirement worked fairly well in Oklahoma for 50 years. The state never had a ballot crowded with too many parties. During the 50 years the requirement was in effect, there was no election with more than two minor parties on the ballot. The old law did have the disadvantage of an early petition deadline, which kept several important parties off the ballot, including the Socialist Party in 1932, the Union Party in 1936, the States Rights Party of 1948. The law also failed to work well for Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party in 1948; an ambiguity in the law kept that party off the ballot. But the history of the law utterly debunks the claims by the Oklahoma Attorney General and the Oklahoma Election Board that the existing requirement for 2014 of 66,744 signatures is needed to keep the ballot from being too crowded. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.