The morning after

Six takeaways from the Oklahoma election

While most of the attention in Oklahoma in early November focused on the geological earthquake that shook the state and the political earthquake that shook the nation, the state election results got less detailed coverage. Here are a few of our important takeaways from the vote:

First, turnout was up. A total of 1,451,056 Oklahomans cast ballots for President, an increase of 9.9 percent compared to the Presidential votes cast in 2012 (1,332,872) but almost identical to the turnout in 2008 (1,462,661) and 2004 (1,463,758). There was a big increase in early voting: over 152,000 people took advantage of in-person early voting, compared to a previous high of 114,000 in 2008. The turnout rate of registered voters was 67.3 percent, also up from 2012.

David Blatt is Executive Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute. For the rest of this article and more, visit okpolicy.org.