On May 6, the Oklahoma House passed HB 2181 by 83-0. It had passed the House on March 10, and had passed the Senate on April 22. But the Senate version was different than the House version, so it had to return to the House to see if the House agreed with the Senate amendments. Now the bill goes to Governor Mary Fallin, who is in her second term.
Assuming she signs it, Oklahoma will require 24,745 signatures for a newly-qualifying party for both 2016 and 2018. Without the bill, the 2016 requirement would have been 41,242. The 2014 requirement was 66,744. The new formula will be 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, whereas the old law is 5% of the last vote cast. Under the old law, the requirement skyrockets for midterm years and is lower in presidential years; this is the “see-saw” effect, but the new bill eliminates it.
UPDATE: here is a video of the House action, which lasts about 5 minutes. It consists of the author of the bill telling the House that he urges that the bill as amended by the Senate be passed by the House. He regrets that the Senate tripled the number of signatures, relative to the original bill, but says that is the best deal he can get. He also said that he would consider a bill in the next session to lower the number of signatures. Thanks to Rick Kissell for the link.
I don’t understand why Independents in Oklahoma simply organize a Oklahoma Independent Party, and hold a convention on local, regional, and statewide levels to nominate at least one serious Independent Candidate for each office. I realize this would not keep a 2nd or 3rd Independent from qualifying for the same office, but hopefully over time, the Independents would become disciplined in Oklahoma and they would cooperate together.
As I understand, Independents in Oklahoma simply pay a qualifying fee, and they are on the General Election Ballot. Why fight the Legislature with their petty offerings, and take advantage of a label that is growing with supporters, day by day. As I’ve often said, we 3rd partisans (and sometimes Independents) are our own worst enemy.
Oklahoma has a straight-ticket device, which injures independent candidates very badly. By contrast, Oklahoma holds a lottery to determine the order of parties on the ballot, so a minor party has an equal chance to be first on the ballot.
It would be interesting to know how many “Independent” voters there are in each state – voters who are actually registered as that word, and not just unaffiliated voters. There is a common pervasive misconception that Independent (capital “I”), independent (lower case), and unaffiliated/nonpartisan are the same thing. Legally they are not. The capital letter legally signifies affiliation with a party of that proper name, whether or not it is actually organized in the state, whereas the lowercase word is just an adjective. The Lowercase independent could possibly be deemed the same as nonpartisan, however, in some states, voters registered nonpartisan and voters registered “Other Party” (non ballot qualified parties) are all lumped under the “independent” category.
Looks like the LP will have an easier time getting on the ballot there now 🙂
“Oklahoma has a straight-ticket device, which injures independent candidates very badly.”
Richard: Despite the straight-ticket device for major parties, hypothetically, if there were only one (1) Independent nominated for each office, would they not appear in a single column, in a row or column of their own? I think I understand what you mean is that there would be NO LABEL of INDEPENDENT at the top of the column or left side of the row?
If this is the case, then yes I could see how it might affect Independent candidates. I was under the assumption that Oklahoma used the “Office Box” ballot
Oklahoma has an office-group ballot. There are no party columns or rows. The first “group” is the straight-ticket device, and many voters therefore only look at that top-most thing on the ballot and use it, and their eye never glances at the remainder of the ballot. There is no choice for “independent” in the straight-ticket part of the ballot.
We (in Oklahoma) are in the early stages of planning a coalition movement of minor parties and independents to push ballot-access reform inside state elections via the independent filing fee.