Oklahoma GOP Tells Independents They Aren't Welcome in Primary Elections

image
Published: 16 Dec, 2015
Updated: 18 Oct, 2022
1 min read

Channel 9 in Oklahoma City reported Tuesday that the state's Republican Party decided not to let independent voters participate in its primary elections in 2016. This means that if independent voters want to participate in the first stage of the public election process (i.e. taxpayer-funded election process) the only option they have is the Democratic ballot.

"As of last month, Oklahoma had 261,199 registered independent voters, or about 13 percent of the state's 1.9 million registered voters," Channel 9 reports.

In Oklahoma, the two major parties are allowed to decide who gets to participate in the primary stage of the election process. Until July 2015, both parties used closed primaries, but the Democratic Party has sense opened its doors to independent voters.

The news from Oklahoma comes shortly after a similar story in Montana broke. There, the state's GOP is suing the state over its open primary election law in an effort to make primaries exclusive to party members. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris recently ruled that the case would go to trial.

Typically, it is the majority party in power that has the biggest objection to independent voters participating in taxpayer-funded primaries. In Hawaii, for instance, the party sued the state in an effort to close its primaries, arguing that open primaries violate the party's constitutional right to association.

Yet, the party wasn't able to provide sufficient evidence that there was a severe burden on the party's rights. In Hawaii and Montana, state law prohibits the parties from closing their primaries. In Oklahoma, as well as many other states, two private organizations get to decide which voters get complete access to the voting franchise and which do not.

 

Latest articles

Marijuana plant.
Why the War on Cannabis Refuses to Die: How Boomers and the Yippies Made Weed Political
For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American physicians freely prescribed cannabis to treat a wide range of ailments. But by the mid-twentieth century, federal officials were laying the groundwork for a sweeping criminal crackdown. Cannabis would ultimately be classified as a Schedule I substance, placed alongside heroin and LSD, and transformed into a political weapon that shaped American policy for the next six decades....
30 Jun, 2025
-
2 min read
Donald Trump standing behind presidential podium and in front of two American flags.
Has Trump Made His Case for the Nobel Peace Prize?
A news item in recent days that was overshadowed in the media by SCOTUS and the One Big Beautiful Budget Bill was a US-brokered peace agreement that was signed between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – which if it holds will end a conflict between the two countries that has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands of people....
30 Jun, 2025
-
7 min read
Picture of skyscraper in New York behind a bridge.
Knives Come Out Against Reform at NYC CRC Hearing as Independents Rise
Last week in Staten Island, the NYC Charter Revision Commission held its next-to-last public hearing. As Commissioner Diane Savino commented, addressing NYC's closed primary system “is the single biggest issue we’ve heard this year.”...
30 Jun, 2025
-
3 min read