The Oklahoma State Election Board has released new voter registration data. The percentages: Republican 45.61%; Democratic 39.71%; independent and miscellaneous 14.52%; Libertarian .17%.

At the January 15, 2016 tally, the percentages were: Republican 43.65%; Democratic 43.48%; independent and miscellaneous 12.88%. There was no Libertarian tally at that time. The state started tallying Libertarians for the first time this year in April, when there were 344 Libertarians. Now there are 3,599 Libertarians. The state is still tallying Americans Elect, and there are eleven voters registered that way. Those voters will soon be converted to independents, no matter what those voters want.

The legislature passed SB 1019 in 2016, authorizing the State Election Board to remove the names of all parties from the voter registration form. The applicant would write in the name of the desired party. However, the bill doesn’t require the Board to remove the names of parties, and the Board has chosen to keep the names of the qualified parties on the form.

Great Britain does not permit write-ins. This is mostly because the ballot access laws are so tolerant, anyone in Britain who wants to get on the ballot for House of Commons generally is able to do so. This BBC article, intended mostly for British readers, explains how write-ins work in the U.S., with special attention to write-ins for President.

On October 26, the Ohio Libertarian Party filed this cert petition in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 16-580. It argues that the 2013 revision of the ballot access laws for newly-qualifying parties is unconstitutional. The case has two main issues: (1) whether it is unconstitutional for a state to provide a means for old established parties to obtain a list of their members, while denying this benefit to newly-qualifying parties; (2) whether the actors who caused the party to have no gubernatorial nominee in 2014 should be considered state agents.

This case is distinct from the party’s case in state court, which argues that the 2013 ballot access law violates the State Constitution.