Time for a change

Oklahoma and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad runoffs

In August, Oklahomans went to the polls to decide 13 legislative primaries and one Congressional primary where no candidate received a majority in the initial primary ballot in June. More precisely, a few Oklahomans went to the polls. Less than one in five registered voters – 19.5 percent – voted in the runoff races in their district. In only one district, SD 19, did turnout exceed 26 percent.

In all but one district, turnout for the runoff was lower than in the primary election. Overall turnout in the 14 races fell by 32 percent between June and August. The biggest drops were mostly in Tulsa-area seats, where voters turned out in larger numbers in June to vote for Tulsa’s Mayor in an open primary.

The drop in turnout was not unusual or unexpected. In the 16 races that were decided by runoffs in 2014, turnout dropped by an average of 32 percent from June to August and fell in every race but one. In 11 of the 16 races, less than twenty per cent of voters showed up for the runoff. In 2012, turnout fell in all 10 legislative and Congressional runoff elections by an average of 26 percent.

Nor is this phenomenon unique to Oklahoma. A 2013 study by the Center for Voting and Democracy examined all primary runoffs in federal House and Senate elections from 1994 to 2012 and found that turnout decreased in 165 of 171 contests. The same study found that the longer the gap between the initial primary round and the runoff, the more turnout is likely to fall. Oklahoma moved its initial primaries from July to June in 2012, creating the current two-month gap.

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