For years, the Senate had been the primary roadblock to Ballot Access Reform. This year saw a shift from the Senate to a single member of the Oklahoma House, Speaker Shannon. I wrote a letter to the editor to NewsOK.com about his role in the death of this important reform and it was published earlier today. Here it is in it’s entirety. (This letter was also published, with some slightly different edits, at the Tulsa World)
Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon held true to his word — ballot access reform wasn’t a priority for him this year. Despite two bills being introduced this session, one in the House and one in the Senate, neither bill made it to the House floor for a vote. House Bill 2134, the bill that would have returned the petition requirement to form a new party to the 5,000-signature requirement of 1974, failed to reach the House floor. Despite passing the House Rules Committee, the Calendar Committee refused to hear the bill at the request of Shannon. This quickly killed the best opportunity for real reform in the state.
Senate Bill 668, which would have removed presidential elections from the signature calculations, also failed to reach the House floor. This would have had the benefit of stabilizing the signature requirement between elections. This bill passed the Senate and the House Judiciary Committee. Unfortunately, the Calendar Committee refused to hear the bill.
One must seriously question the priorities of Shannon if providing voters real election choices isn’t one of them. In the last three elections, Oklahoma voters have been the only ones in the United States to be denied more than two choices for president. Oklahoma voters need and want this reform. They’ve been asking for it for decades. If the Legislature and Shannon, specifically, are unwilling to make the change, the people will force it.
Again, We encourage all readers to write letters to both NewsOK and the Tulsa World as well as any local newspapers you read. The more we talk about this violation of voter rights, the better chance it has of passing.
I wanted to respond to myopinion’s comments on the Tulsa world, but I can’t since I am not a subscriber to the paper. So I will publish my comments here:
myopinion wrote: “Zachary there’s a big difference in the population from 1974 to 2013”
My response:
It is not total population that matters for ballot access laws. It is the total number of people voting that matters. Here are the facts.
The law was changed in 1974 and the new signature requirement of 5% of the last general election took effect in in time for the 1976 election. Here are the votes cast and the number of signatures needed for the next election.
Total or Estimated votes cast in:
1972: 1,029,900
1974: 791,809
2010: 1,031,767
Total or Estimated Signatures Needed:
1974: 5,000 0.5% of vote in 1972
1976: 39,598 792% increase from 1974
2012: 51,588 4x the National Average
As you can see, the signature requirement has not change with the population of voters from prior to 1974 to today at the same rate as the signature requirement did during the same time frame. The change from a flat 5,000 to a 5% rate was completely unjustified at the time and is completely unjustifiable today.