Oklahomans who fail to select a party affiliation would not become registered voters under a bill heading to the Senate despite concerns that it will disenfranchise thousands of voters without their knowledge.
House Bill 3722, authored by Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, R-Piedmont, would make selecting a party affiliation or independent designation a requirement to complete voter registration. Currently, voters who do not select one of those are automatically registered as independent.
Calling it an “election integrity” bill, Crosswhite Hader said she doesn’t think these thousands of voters intended to be registered as independents. The state shouldn’t “assume” their intent, she said.
“For me, voting is a right and a privilege, but very much a responsibility,” she said. “And so when that responsibility falls on that potential voter, they need to complete their application.”
House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, said Oklahoma already has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country.
She said over 4,000 Oklahomans have registered to vote without selecting an affiliation. Munson said she’s concerned that by classifying these kind of applications as “incomplete” and not notifying those voters of that would make them ineligible to vote.
These already-registered voters would not be affected by the bill, only those seeking to register.
Voter registration form could be made more user friendly instead of changing state law, said Rep. Mickey Dollens, D-Oklahoma City.
“It’d be easy for 4,000 people to not want to affiliate with a political party so they skip that part, they leave it blank,” he said. “If we were to adjust that, make it more user friendly, not bury the unaffiliated option in a drop down link … perhaps we wouldn’t have so many people not completing the form.”
Rep. Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee, said with the way Oklahoma primaries are set up, those who forget to select a party and are automatically designated as independent become ineligible to vote in primary elections.
“If I go fill out an application to get a driver’s license, if it’s incomplete, can I get a driver’s license? I don’t believe I can,” Fetgatter said.
The online voter registration application already asks for the potential voter’s birthdate, address, driver’s license number and partial Social Security number.
The bill passed off the House floor last week with a 75-18 party line vote and is now eligible to be heard in the Senate.
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence.
