Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. Media's time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust. I'm Tom Davis. We have Fran in here with us from the LEGO. But women voters, how you doing today?
Oh? Just fine.
It's always great to have you in here because we always learn something, and today we're going to learn about something sort of new.
Well, the League is going to be sponsoring a program next Tuesday night for all of us to learn about open primaries. That's where it doesn't matter whether you are Republican, Democrat, or independent, but you can vote in the primary and then the idea is that the top two vote getters will be on the ballot when it comes down to the actual voting whenever that is.
That's a little different to a type of open primary that I think I remember from a long time back. But it's different, but it's good.
Well, you said you had lived in states that had open primaries, but that it's a new thing for Oklahoma, so we need to learn about it pros and cons. And that's why two people from Oklahoma United are going to be coming to Bartlesville next Tuesday night down to the public library and they'll tell us about it.
Well, that'd be great. Fact, I think we have one. Margaret Cobas is on the line, and Margaret, how are you today?
I am fabulous. I'm so excited about going to Bartlesville.
Well, you ought to be. It's a great town. You ought to come by here and spend more time to have it.
No, I've been going to Bartlesville my whole life, and I love it. And I think you guys are awesome and have a such a special heritage, and I just can't wait to meet lots of people.
Margaret, tell us a little bit about this proposal for an open primary as we're seeing it here on paper. Tell us a little bit more about the intricacies, please, right.
So, I'm very happy that you actually touched on a couple of things about open primaries that are really important. Number One, Oklahoma United is a nonpartisan grassroots group that I founded in twenty twenty one as a way to try to find out what's going on in Oklahoma with US not voting and we have low turnout. We've been last in the country for a long time. We were last in the US and voter turnout in twenty twenty but then we fell even further in twenty twenty four.
So for the last four years, Oklahoma United has been conducting polls and research and listening sessions all over the state and at any place we can find people and asking a question like why aren't we voting? What's going on here? And the resounding reply was that people just
don't feel like they matter. And we have a situation where in twenty twenty two midterms, ninety four percent of the races in the twenty twenty two elections were considered non competitive, so there were either no choices or the choice was made in a single party primary. And that's across the state of Oklahoma. So you can see why people feel like their voices don't matter when they kind of don't matter. And when you reverse engineer it, you
really get very quickly to the primary system. We are only one of twelve states that has a closed primary system. That means that while we are last in voter turnout, we are tolerating a system that excludes half a million now the fastest growing group of voters in Oklahoma and across the US, and that is the group of people who register independent. So while we want to be better
about voter participation and turnout. The first thing I think we have found is that we just need to start by letting everybody vote right, And that's just kind of common sense. We've got these people who are registered to vote, they want to vote, and we just need to start
with that. So our research actually led us further, and that is that people in Oklahoma have been telling us not only do they want independence to be able to have a full right to vote in the elections that we are all paying for, by the way, but they also actually don't even want separate primaries anymore. You know, our world is very divided, and yet we know that statewide, we all share a lot of common goals with regards to schools and roads and bridges and you know, the
infrastructure and the economic opportunities that we want. We all want them and they are not partisan issues. So a lot of Oklahoma's have been saying, why don't we just all have one ballot. We'll just have one primary, we all vote on it. It's like high school, It's like
every city in town in Oklahoma already does. And let's just do that and simplify the system and get everybody in it and then all of the candidates would face all the voters, and all the voters will get to have the same menu in front of them.
That's interesting because I don't recall anybody being prevented from voting. But as you say, if you are an independent, where are you going to go on primary day? So therefore you are left out in the cold.
Right when I say prevented, what I mean is a closed primary system actually has taxpayer funded primaries in which parties are permitted to exclude the public. So if you are wanting if you don't want to register in a party for whatever reason, and I say that as a registered Republican myself, but if I were, you know, you want to register with a party that makes your heart's saying, and if it doesn't, then you might still want to vote.
But you.
Have the ability and the right to register as an independent. So many of our elections, like eighty four percent were in twenty four, were decided in partisan primaries, and in fact, certain elections like county sheriff races were seventy six out of seventy seven counties didn't even have a general election for sheriff. So when I'm saying that independents are prohibited from voting. I mean that this system does not permit an independent to participate fully in all elections.
I appreciate that clarity. Now, we've got a big event coming up brand and again it's going to be at the library.
Well, you mean the meeting yes week, Yes, next Tuesday night. Legal Women Voters mandate is to try to encourage participation in our voting process. So this is a very important
topic for us to learn about. And at the library room A upstairs, if you come at six thirty, there will be informal time with refreshments, and then the program starts at seven and we have not only Margaret speaking, but also Pat McFerrin, who is a strategist for Oklahoma United, and he will be talking about the process they're going through to get ready for the state Question eight thirty six, which will be collecting signatures in the hope that we can get it on the ballot.
So there is a process, we learn about it, the ask for signatures takes place, and then we see where it goes from there.
Yeah, they'll explain what the timeline is and how many signatures they have to collect and things like that.
Margaret, this is why I hang out with fran you know, she's kind of like that. She can point me to the information I need.
Well, we love that, and we we're just so excited to be able to take questions from the public because that's the mission of Oklahoma United is very aligned with the legal woman voters, and that we're not trying to create a nail for a hammer. We're trying to answer a problem that I think is widely acknowledged in Oklahoma with a common sense solution.
That's that's going to be very interesting to learn about. Imagine there are some cons as well as some pros, and I'm sure that you've looked into that in the many states that now have open primaries. So we'll look forward to being informed about that so that voters can make up their minds about whether they want to sign the petition, whether they want to see this take place
in Oklahoma. I can repeat that's next Tuesday, six point thirty for refreshments and to meet people, and seven o'clock for the program in Room A upstairs at our wonderful public library.
And Margaret, we look forward to having me have both you and the partner there with us and really letting people fully understand what this idea encompasses. Like I told Fran, I've lived in that in a state where they had the open primaries, and you know they it took a while for people to get used to it. But I guess whenever something changes, there's always that learning girl.
Well, I remember when my mother moved the cereal bowls in the cabinet. I was very upset when I was little. But you know, times are different now. And when we're talking about independent voters, we're talking about our children and our grandchildren, and our military people, the large majority of which all register tend to register as independent. And you know,
we have to be able. I say this sometimes our job is to enable our children and the future generations to govern themselves in a strong democracy, and we need to restore or build I would say, faith and government. And so I don't really see a downside to this. I'm all powered to the people, and I just think that Oklahomas share a lot of the same concerns on a state level, and we see this as something that the people of Oklahoma seem to really respond well to.
This is going to be really interesting, Frand I tell you, it is really amazing how the League of Women Voters are able to identify different things coming down the pipe and really bring it to the forefront for not only people to listen, but to ask questions. And you know, I think the Great American Discussion is going to be at the library.
Yes, indeed, we're very proud to be able to use the free meeting room at the library for public, nonprofit events like this so that people can meet the speakers and talk with them and ask questions and inform ourselves on how to make our country stronger.
Very good, Very good. Well, you know, this is going to be an exciting an affair and once again we're going to learn about this process called open primary. If you've not lived in another state where you've had this, it is well worth the time and attention. If you have any questions or any curiosity. I think there's a lot of people going to be more curious than anything.
Else for him, because this is a new thing for our state. It's kind of a new concept to wrap our heads around. But I think especially I hope independent voters will come because this is especially relevant for them.
I think they're, like Margaret said, they're more out there than you know who are independent. They like certain things on certain menus and certain things on other menus, and they prefer to do their voting.
A lakarte and this is a way so that they would have more choice when it comes down to actually voting, because, as Margaret said, so many of our elections have been limited to whoever survived the primary.
You know, we have a lot of spokespeople advocates for this proposal who are very committed party members. We just see more choices in this system for everyone, not just the independence but also the party members as well. And you know, I don't think that people are concerned about having too many choices in a system that's often not
even fielding more than one candidate. So, you know, we just want to open this up and get more people excited about public service and being part of solutions and the talent school that make Oklahoma great.
Margaret, do you have a website that folks can read up on your group there or maybe a Facebook page?
You bet we have. The Oklahoma United website is Okay hyphen United dot org. But there's also a State Question eight thirty six website which is vote Yes eight three six dot com. And both of those have information and since I'm the founder of Oklahoma United. I'm more familiar with that one, but lots of information about statistics of Oklahoma elections, how to open primaries work, and the differences between a closed and an open system.
Very good and Frand, once again, i'd like to ask you to repeat the meeting time and where folks can find out more information.
Yes, it's next Tuesday, February eleventh, at six point thirty for casual meeting people and talking and refreshments, and then seven o'clock for the program. It will be at the Bartlesviill Public Library upstairs in Room A. There is an elevator.
Wonderful. I like that. My knees are just thanking you right now, Margaret and Fran, I want to thank you both for being here with us today on our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust