Open primaries

A primary decides who makes the general election ballot. In a closed, partisan primary, only voters registered with a party can help choose its nominee, even though the election is run with tax dollars. Voters who don't join a party are shut out of an election they pay for.

That matters most where one party dominates. When a district reliably elects one party, its primary is the real election, and the winner only has to satisfy the voters who show up for it: a small, partisan slice of the people the officeholder will represent. Everyone else is left with a meaningless November election.

In an open primary, every candidate for an office appears on a single primary ballot with their party registration, and every voter can vote in it, regardless of party¹. Each voter picks one candidate, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election¹.

That changes who a candidate has to win over. Today, in a district one party dominates, an officeholder answers to the voters in that party's primary. With an open primary, every voter in the district helps decide who makes the ballot, and every voter decides who wins: every voter can vote in every election. Washington and California already use open primaries like this for state and congressional races¹².

"Two candidates from the same party can end up in November." True. In 2016, two Democrats met in California's 44th congressional district². But in a district one party dominates, that party's primary already decides the race. An open primary moves the deciding vote to November, when everyone votes: about 178,000 people voted in that 2016 general election, against about 100,000 in the primary².

"A crowded field can split the vote and hand both slots to the other side." It has happened. In 2012, four Democrats split the vote in a Democratic-leaning California district, and two Republicans advanced². A review of several hundred races under California's open primary found it was the only seemingly safe Democratic seat lost that way². Parties learn fast not to run four candidates for one seat.

"Parties should choose their own nominees." They still can. An open primary like this doesn't pick party nominees; it narrows the field for a public election. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Washington's system on that basis in 2008, and noted parties remain free to nominate candidates however they choose¹. What we object to is parties deciding which voters get a say in an election that everyone pays for.

"It squeezes third parties and independent candidates out of November." This is a real trade-off. In many states, an independent candidate can go straight to the general election ballot; in an open primary, they'd have to finish in the top two. We think it's worth it: a closed primary gives independent voters no say at all.

Most races are over before November

In Oklahoma, the real decision is usually made on filing day or in a party primary. By one count from SQ 836's legal team, about 86% of federal, state, and county offices didn't have candidates from both major parties on the ballot³.

Those primaries are small. In the August 25, 2026 runoff, about 371,000 Oklahomans picked the Republican nominee for governor: roughly 15% of the state's 2.43 million registered voters⁴. About 129,000, roughly 5%, picked the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate⁴.

Oklahoma had the second-lowest turnout in the country in 2024, at 53.3%⁵. When the outcome is settled in June, it's hard to blame people for skipping November.

Half a million voters get no say

Oklahoma's primaries are closed: you vote only in your own party's primary⁶. A party may let independents in by telling the State Election Board between November 1 and 30 of an odd-numbered year, and the choice holds for the next two years⁶⁷.

For 2026, no party did. Democrats had let independents vote in their primaries since 2016, but the Election Board ruled they missed the filing window⁷⁸. So the 491,294 Oklahomans registered as Independent, one voter in five, had no vote in any primary for governor, Congress, or the Legislature⁹¹⁰. Statewide, the only thing on their June ballot was a state question¹⁰.

As one independent voter in Tulsa put it, "I'm paying for the primary"¹⁰.

Oklahoma already does this locally

Oklahomans already vote this way in municipal, school board, and other local elections. Everyone gets the same ballot, all the candidates are listed, and if someone gets above 50%, they win! If no one wins a majority in those elections, then the two who received the most votes meet in a runoff¹¹. For example, in 2024, both candidates in Tulsa's mayoral runoff were Democrats, and every Tulsa voter got to choose between them¹¹. Other states already use open primaries for state and congressional races, and Oklahoma should, too.

The SQ 836 campaign

State Question 836 would replace Oklahoma's closed, exclusionary partisan primaries with open primaries: a single primary ballot listing every candidate and their party registration, open to every voter regardless of party, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election³. Its proponents were a Republican, a Democrat, and an independent³. The Oklahoma Republican Party challenged the petition in court; in September 2025, the Oklahoma Supreme Court let it go forward¹².

Vote Yes 836 volunteers had 90 days, starting October 29, 2025, to gather signatures³. In January 2026, they turned in more than 200,000, well over the 172,993 required³¹³.

SQ 836 didn't lack supporters. It ran into a rule the Legislature changed two years earlier. A 2024 law, Senate Bill 518, made it harder for a signature to count: it must now match four of five details on the signer's voter record (legal first and last name, ZIP code, house number, and birth month and day), up from three¹⁴. SQ 836 was the first major petition checked under the new rule¹⁴. The Secretary of State threw out 57,841 signatures, more than one in four of those checked¹⁴, a record share. The certified count was 142,567, about 30,400 short¹⁵.

Meanwhile, in March 2026, a House committee advanced HJR 1019, which would write partisan primaries into the Oklahoma Constitution¹⁶.

In June 2026, two challenges to the count went to the Oklahoma Supreme Court: one from four signers, including Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn and former Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Ross Swimmer, and one from attorney Mark Sanders¹⁷¹⁸. They argue the test should be whether each signer was a registered voter, not whether four data points matched: "57,841 citizens did not lie"¹⁷. A court referee heard arguments in July¹⁵.