Oklahoma’s Draconian Ballot Access Laws

The great Richard Winger, longtime editor and publisher of Ballot Access News, contacted me to correct my assertions in my recent LRC podcast interview concerning Oklahoma’s draconian statutory ballot requirements from the period after World War I. I defer to his wonderful knowledge and expertise in these matters for he has long been recognized as one of the leading authorities in this area.

Richard notes:

Oklahoma does have a terrible history of ballot access, but it is not true that all minor parties were kept off the ballot in your state between World War One and George Wallace.  The petition requirement was 5,000 signatures between 1924 and 1974.  The Progressive, Prohibition, Socialist, and Farmer-Labor Parties were on in Oklahoma, or at least one of them was, in all elections 1924 through 1944.  The reason Theodore Roosevelt didn’t get on in 1912 was not a bad petition requirement, but an early deadline.  No signatures were required at all in Oklahoma in 1912.

Share

8:17 am on January 6, 2012