Election proposal worth consideration
THE Oklahoma Academy, a nonpartisan group that presents policy ideas to the Legislature each year, is recommending that Oklahoma do away with its party primary system. Might this provide the impetus to finally make this long-debated change?
In 2015, state Sen. David Holt, R-Oklahoma City, filed several bills aimed at improving voter turnout. One of them was what The Oklahoma Academy suggests — create a “top two” system in which candidates of all parties would appear on a ballot in August, with the top two finishers, regardless of party, advancing to the general election in November.
The idea is to do away with costly, light-turnout runoff elections. This year, primary elections for governor and several other races will be June 26, with runoffs Aug. 28 and the general election Nov. 6.
The only way to avoid a runoff is to get at least 50 percent of the vote. The Republican race for governor includes at least six candidates — the likelihood of any one of them eclipsing 50 percent is remote, meaning a runoff is a near certainty.
Participation between the primary and runoff elections generally drops off, sometimes considerably, but the state still must go to the expense of holding an election. As we have said before, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for an election that produces limited interest doesn’t make much sense politically or fiscally.
In the primary two years ago, 13 legislative races went undecided because no one received 50 percent plus one of the vote. In several of those, the leading vote-getter received well more than 40 percent but came up just short of exceeding 50 percent, mandating that they come back again for the runoff.
Some defenders of the current system point to elections in which runoffs proved decisive for candidates who finished second in the primary. A leading example is Brad Henry in 2002. Henry won just 28.5 percent of the vote in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, compared with 44 percent for Vince Orza, but defeated Orza in the runoff and then won the general election.
The Oklahoma Academy, comprising 525 members from across the state, holds annual policy-driven gatherings each year. Following four days of discussion, the group reaches a consensus and submits recommendations to the Legislature and policymakers.
Dan Boren, co-chairman of the academy’s most recent town hall, says a top-two system could increase voter participation, reduce partisanship and weaken the hold of special interests. “If you look at some of the runoffs and party primary elections, the numbers are really low,” says Boren, a former state and federal lawmaker. “The recommendations are based on that.”
Washington state was the first to go to a top-two system, in 2004. California began doing so in 2010. Nebraska uses the system for its state legislative races, which are nonpartisan.
Might Oklahoma become the fourth state to do so? The idea has been suggested many times and nothing has changed. But perhaps the recommendation from The Oklahoma Academy, whose goal is simply to improve the state, could give it new life. The money saved from holding one fewer election, and the potential to increase voter turnout, make it well worth considering.