"Why and Why Not" podcast host Brad Fallon welcomes guest Dr. Stephen Medvic, Author of Gerrymandering: The Politics of Redistricting in the United States, for an in-depth look at gerrymandering.
This funny-sounding word gets scorn from both major political parties, yet we have more gerrymandered maps than ever. So how'd we get here and what could we do about it?
Changes to USPS postmarking, ranked choice voting fights, costly runoffs, and gerrymandering reveal growing cracks in U.S. election systems.
While the media has kept people’s focus on the Epstein files, Venezuela, or a potential invasion of Greenland, the United States Postal Service adopted a new rule that will have a broad impact on Americans – especially in an election year in which millions of people will vote by mail.
The rule went into effect on Christmas Eve and has largely flown under the radar, with the exception of some local coverage, a report from PBS News, and Independent Voter News. It states that items mailed through USPS will no longer be postmarked on the day it is received.
Instead, items will be postmarked on the day they are processed, which will take longer under USPS restructuring.
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The reason this is so impactful going into an election year is because many states have absentee and mail-in voting rules that explicitly state that as long as a ballot envelope is postmarked by election day, it will count.
However, in order for a ballot to count in 2026, voters will have to be aware of this rule change and not procrastinate their vote.
PBS reports that the Postal Service is undergoing reorganization, “including the consolidation of nearly 200 sectional facilities – where mail is typically postmarked – into 60 regional processing locations, which are likely to receive fewer truck dropoffs per day.”
“More than 70% of post offices will now be more than 50 miles away from a regional processing center, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution. More than 25% of post offices will be 150 miles or more away.”
Across the board, from ballots to bills to taxes and anything else that is time sensitive, this means there is going to be a delay in postmarking items.
In 2024, nearly 1-in-3 voters across the U.S. cast a ballot by mail. But where this will have the biggest impact are states that send absentee ballots to all voters, like California, and states that conduct their elections entirely by mail-in voting – like Colorado and Washington.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized mail-in voting, claiming that it is ripe with fraud and abuse.
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According to data from the California secretary of state’s office, nearly 1% of ballots received by mail in 2024 were rejected. This accounts for nearly 123,000 ballots. An in-depth analysis by USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy found that 27% of these ballots arrived late.
This will also make it more difficult for voters to “cure” their ballots on time in the event of another type of discrepancy, like a mismatched signature or no signature provided at all.
Californians can ensure same-day delivery of their ballot by taking it directly to the office of their county’s registrar of voters on election day or during early voting. The USPS also says people can go to a staffed retail location and ask for a manual postmark, but it must be requested.
Voters left uninformed of these options may be impacted by the change, and it’s likely California and other states will see at least some increase in ballots rejected as a result of being late.
Alaska voters have been asked to weigh in on the state’s new nonpartisan, top four primary system with ranked choice voting (RCV) in the general election twice. In 2020, a majority of voters approved the election model. Then, in 2024, they rejected repeal.
But reform opponents are not giving up and will put repeal on the ballot again in 2026.
The Alaska Repeal Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative will appear on the November 3 ballot at the same time voters will use RCV in statewide elections unless the Alaska Legislature passes similar legislation while in session.
The initiative repeals 3 things:
The state’s Top Four model is the first-of-its-kind. Like nonpartisan primary systems in Washington and California, all voters and candidates participate on a single primary ballot, regardless of party.
The difference in Alaska is that the top four vote-getters, rather than the top two, advance to the general election where RCV is used to determine a majority winner. Voters can rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.)
Narrow majorities have approved and protected the adoption of this system. The vote to reject repeal was narrower in 2024 -- 50.1% to 49.9% -- which saw a lower turnout than 2020. Advocates of repeal hope a lower turnout in the midterms will lead to success.
These supporters include Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has said RCV “was pitched as a reform to solve a problem that, frankly, didn’t exist in Alaska.”
We were told it would reduce partisanship, promote consensus candidates, and make elections more fair. In reality, what we got was a system that confused voters, made outcomes less transparent, and created deep concerns about how votes are tabulated and who ultimately decides an election."
Multiple outlets, including the Alaska Beacon and Anchorage Daily News, have reported on an increase in bipartisan and nonpartisan coalitions on the campaign trail and in the legislature under RCV. A recent study also found an increase in turnout among underrepresented groups.
Notably, Dunleavy does not mention the nonpartisan primary system, which also faces repeal under the initiative. This may be because repealing nonpartisan primaries means going back to a closed partisan primary system that shuts out 60% of the electorate that is registered independent of the two parties.
An academic paper from December 2025 found what independent reformers have said for decades and that is closed primary systems create a system of political inequity that is designed to only benefit two private political groups, the Republican and Democratic Parties.
"Consequences of this political inequality include the distortion of public policy where the preferences of certain groups are amplified by closed primary elections, and the resulting policies and candidates reflect the interests of the more powerful groups,” the paper found.
Advocates of nonpartisan primary reform assert that limiting voter participation and denying independents equal voting rights allows private political groups like the two major parties and aligned special interests to have outsized influence and control over election results.
Rebecca Braun, who is a member of Alaskans for Better Elections – the campaign that spearheaded Top Four with RCV in the state – said there’s no such thing as a perfect election system, but she thinks the new system is better.
“Mathematicians study this, and there’s almost nothing where you have 100% perfect outcomes. But this seems like to me a better system,” she said.
Santa Clara County, California, conducted a special election on December 30 to fill in a vacancy for county assessor following the resignation of Larry Stone. A general election was held on November 30 but because no candidate got a majority of the vote a runoff was triggered for the following month.
The runoff election cost an estimated $13.1 million. This is on top of the $13 million price tag for the general election. Meanwhile, turnout in the runoff compared to the general elections dropped by 53%. So... same cost, half the turnout.
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Early voting was conducted over Christmas week, and the election was held right before New Year’s Eve, so few are surprised by the low turnout.
The better elections group FairVote, a national advocate for ranked choice voting, reports that “the winner of the runoff, Neysa Fligor, received 33,332 fewer votes in the runoff than in the general election.”
Ranked choice voting (RCV) advocates say that their reform could save taxpayers money and ensure elections are decided when the most voters participate by eliminating the need for a separate runoff election.
Under the reform, voters can rank the candidates on the ballot in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority of first choice selections, the last place candidate is eliminated and their voters’ next choices are applied to the tally.
This process continues until a single candidate has a majority. This instant runoff process serves the purpose of a regular runoff process, but without the added time, resources, and expense of a separate election.
It is possible for Santa Clara County to adopt RCV. County voters approved its use in a 1998 ballot measure. The county purchased new voting machines in 2019 capable of using RCV. And, the California Legislature approved AB 1227, which allows Santa Clara to adopt it.
On December 2, a county advisory committee recommended adopting RCV for special elections to start in order to save money. Whether the county adopts this recommendation remains to be seen.
In December, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s Redistricting Advisory Commission voted 3-2 to move forward with a mid-cycle congressional gerrymander. However, this is something most Maryland voters don’t want.
Moore convened the commission following the passage of Prop 50 in California, which gives the Democratic Party an advantage in 92% of the state’s congressional districts.
A survey from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, found that 81% of respondents in the state said redrawing electoral districts to benefit a single party is “a major” problem for American democracy.
Only 1-in-10 respondents supported a redistricting process in which state legislators redraw districts.
But this isn’t the only survey that shows such a massive rejection of gerrymandering efforts in the state. The nonpartisan better elections group Open Primaries also released the results of its own survey this week which found that 80% of independent voters in the state oppose gerrymandering.
Partisan gerrymandering ensures that districts remain safe for a single party, which makes independents feel double penalized in Maryland because they are shut out of taxpayer-funded closed primary elections where most political contests in the state are effectively decided.
Open Primaries reports that its poll also found that 84% of independents believe that all voters should be able to vote in the primaries.
"There is a widening gap between how Independent Marylanders view fair representation and how our elections are actually conducted," said Cathy Stewart, National Organizing Director of Open Primaries."
"When you shut out independents, a quarter of the state's electorate, from the contests where 85% of elections are decided, gerrymandering creates a double penalty. We are barred from the primaries that matter, and gerrymandering makes the races uncompetitive in November, effectively rendering the voices of independent voters irrelevant."Open Primaries has spearheaded a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of closed primaries used in the state. There are about 1 million registered voters in the state who are denied access to these elections each election cycle.
2026 Will See an Increase in Rejected Mail-In Ballots - Here's Why was originally published by Independent Voter News and is republished with permission.
A little-known interstate compact could change how the U.S. elects presidents by 2028, replacing the Electoral College with the national popular vote.
Most Americans are unaware, but a quiet campaign in states across the country is moving toward one of the biggest changes in presidential elections since the nation was founded.
A movement called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is happening mostly out of public view and could soon change how the United States picks its president, possibly as early as 2028.
If the compact reaches 270 electoral votes and overcomes likely legal challenges, the national popular vote winner would become president for the first time in U.S. history. Although this effort is not widely known, it could reshape the balance of power for years.
So far, 17 states and Washington, D.C., have joined the NPVIC, giving it control of 209 electoral votes. This is about 39% of the Electoral College and 77% of the 270 votes needed for the compact to take effect. Member states include large ones like California, New York, and Illinois, as well as medium-sized states such as Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington. Smaller members include D.C., Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
The compact needs just 61 more electoral votes to take effect. The most likely progress will come from states where the bill has already passed one legislative chamber. This has happened in seven states—Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Virginia—which together have 74 electoral votes.
Nevada stands out because its legislature has passed the NPV bill several times, but the governor has always vetoed it. In Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia, the compact has passed at least one chamber before, so with the right political conditions, these states could move forward.
All these states are important, and different combinations could help the compact succeed. If states like Nevada, Virginia, Michigan, and North Carolina join, the total could rise from 209 to between 240 and 280 electoral votes. This means the compact could reach 270 before 2028 if the political climate is right.
Even if the compact gets to 270 electoral votes, another challenge is whether it will actually be put into practice. The process seems simple, but the legal details are complicated. The Constitution lets state legislatures choose presidential electors, and member states promise to give all their electors to the national popular vote winner once the compact reaches 270 votes. Supporters say this is allowed under Article II of the Constitution.
Opponents raise two main legal and constitutional concerns. First, they question whether this can happen without Congress’s approval. Some legal experts say such a big change to presidential elections needs Congress to sign off. Others argue that since each state can choose this method on its own, agreeing together does not give them more power over the federal government, so Congress’s approval is not needed. Critics also say the compact might be an improper way to change the presidential election system without a constitutional amendment. They believe that making the national popular vote winner president is such a big change that it cannot be done by state law alone.
If there are future conflicts between state popular votes, recounts, and the national total, lawsuits could follow, as seen in cases like Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court might have to decide if the compact fits with the Constitution. So, the national popular vote effort is moving on two fronts: politically, where a few more states could push it past 270 votes, and legally, where Congress and the courts will decide if the change is real or just symbolic.
David L. Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
The Institute for Mathematics and Democracy (IMD) has released what may be the most comprehensive empirical study of ranked choice voting ever conducted. The 66-page report analyzes nearly 4,000 real-world ranked ballot elections, including some 2,000 political elections, and more than 60 million simulated ones to test how different voting methods perform.
The study’s conclusion is clear. Ranked choice voting methods outperform traditional first-past-the-post elections on nearly every measure of democratic fairness.
IMD’s research team, led by mathematicians from Wellesley College, William Jewell College, Colby College, High Point University, and Boston University, found that IRV and Condorcet methods of tabulation consistently produce outcomes that better reflect the majority will and reduce the effects of vote splitting and “spoiler” candidates.
“The best performing methods are IRV and Condorcet,” the report concludes. “They are least likely to be susceptible to spoiler effects, are mostly resistant to strategic voting, and are unlikely to elect weak or fringe candidates.”
Founded in 2019, the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy brings together academics, educators, and civic leaders around a single mission: to use mathematics as a force for democratic renewal.
Ismar Volic, the institute’s director, said the study reflects that mission in action.
“We need better electoral engineering, namely a better design of mechanisms of democracy that would produce outcomes that are favorable to more people,” he said.
At its core, the Institute believes that mathematical literacy is civic literacy, and that understanding how votes are counted is just as essential as casting them.
IMD’s latest research analyzed ranked-choice data from Australia, Scotland, and the United States, alongside simulated models based on tens of millions of hypothetical ballots. Across both real and simulated elections, IRV and Condorcet methods agreed on the winning candidate in an overwhelming majority of cases.
Plurality voting, the system used in most U.S. elections, performed the worst. It regularly rewarded polarizing candidates and encouraged strategic “lesser of two evils” voting.
Ranked systems, on the other hand, gave voters the freedom to express their full preferences without fear of wasting a vote and encourage moderation, since candidates must appeal beyond their base to earn second-choice rankings.
While IRV earned praise for its simplicity and real-world adoption, Condorcet stood out in the data as the most mathematically fair system. Condorcet methods were found to be “the most resistant to the spoiler effect” and to produce the most broadly supported winners.
The report notes that Condorcet elections were the best at avoiding “fringe” or extreme candidates. This is because Condorcet elections avoid a “center squeeze” in which a candidate preferred by a majority of voters when considered head-to-head against either a candidate on the left or a candidate on the right cannot prevail.
The IMD’s work connects with a growing academic interest in how mathematics can inform public policy. Among those bridging that gap is Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin, who spoke at the Institute’s recent conference on mathematics and democracy held at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Maskin, a pioneer in the field of mechanism design, studies how institutions can be structured to achieve socially desirable outcomes.
“Mechanism design is centered around the goals that society wants to attain,” he explained. “The idea is to try to figure out a mechanism or an institution or a procedure that will attain those goals.”
In his presentation, Maskin highlighted the same flaw that IMD’s study quantifies: First-past-the-post elections too often produce winners that most voters actually oppose. He advocated for Condorcet-style voting, in which voters rank candidates, and the winner is the one who would defeat all others in head-to-head matchups.
He also spoke about the challenge of translating technical research for a broader audience.
“It’s actually much harder to write for a general audience,” he said. “They’re not going to understand the language that professionals use. I have to think about every word, and I don’t want to oversimplify.”
That commitment to clarity mirrors the Institute’s philosophy. For IMD, reform depends as much on education as on analysis. The organization focuses on teaching citizens how to evaluate claims about fairness, data, and democracy.
“Most ideas for reform, if you trace them back, go back to an academic,” Maskin said. “But it can’t end with academics. There’s also the very practical problem: how do you get these changes adopted?”
Maskin pointed to ranked-choice voting initiatives in Maine, Alaska, New York City, and San Francisco as examples of progress made possible by education.
“In order for the public to be willing to vote for change,” he said, “they have to be educated. They have to understand why the current system is flawed and why the new proposal is better.”
That is precisely the Institute’s mission: to make democracy not just fairer, but smarter.
Through its research, teaching, and outreach, the mathematicians at IMD are helping citizens see elections the way mathematicians do, not as static contests but as underlying systems that can be designed, tested, and improved.
If democracy is a design problem, perhaps it is time to let the mathematicians help solve it.
Why Mathematicians Love Ranked Choice Voting was originally published by Independent Voter News and is republished with permission.
People Not Politicians (PNP) submitted over 305,000 signatures last week to freeze a congressional gerrymander passed by the Missouri Legislature in September. However, state officials are doing everything they can to pretend this citizen revolt isn’t happening.
“The citizens of Missouri have spoken loudly and clearly: they deserve fair maps, not partisan manipulation,” said PNP Executive Director Richard von Glahn.
Yet the partisan manipulations continue. Not only have state officials sued to block the referendum, but they are defying their own precedent to ignore citizens entirely and move forward with the gerrymandered map.
Article III, Section 52(a) of the Missouri Constitution states that voters have the right to challenge actions taken by the General Assembly through a veto referendum if they collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot.
Petitioners are required to get signatures from 5% of legal voters in two-thirds of the state’s congressional districts, which in 2025 means about 110,000 Missourians.
PNP started to collect petitions in mid-September after the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature passed HB 1, a new congressional map that carves up Kansas City in an attempt to give the GOP one additional seat (which would give them 7 of the state’s 8 seats).
Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed HB 1 into law on September 28. After Texas and California, it fueled further escalation in a bipartisan race to the bottom that IVN News has covered extensively.
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, also a Republican, approved PNP’s referendum petition to overturn the gerrymander on October 16, but said any signatures collected prior to October 14 would not count. By then, PNP says it had collected 100,000 signatures.
“Under Missouri law, no signatures gathered before this approval date are valid, and doing so constitutes a misdemeanor election offense,” Hoskins said.
Von Glahn asserts that this position not only deliberately deceives voters, but violates court precedent:
Secretary Hoskins is deliberately spreading misinformation for political purposes. Our campaign has gathered signatures at a historic pace — I’ve never seen Missourians unite and mobilize this quickly,” he said in October.
He also cites No Bans on Choice et al. v. Ashcroft (2022). In its decision, the state Supreme Court found that the law Hoskins claims still exists was struck down for violating citizens’ constitutional rights.
PNP’s referendum was then taken to court – not only on the subject of signatures, but Hoskins and State Attorney General Catherine L. Hanaway also sued PNP. They claimed that the anti-gerrymandering referendum violated the U.S. Constitution.
On December 8, a federal judge dismissed the case over a lack of jurisdiction.
At the same time, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh heard arguments on the signature issue. On Monday, December 15, Limbaugh delayed ruling on the case until after election officials are done verifying the 305,000 signatures submitted by PNP.
PNP delivered more than 600 boxes of signatures to Hoskins. However, the secretary says HB 1 will not be suspended until he certifies the referendum for the ballot, which Von Glahn notes is another departure from established precedent.
"It is very clear in law and in practice in Missouri that upon the submission of signatures, until the Secretary of State makes a decision to either certify the initiative as sufficient or to certify the petition is insufficient, the map is frozen,” he said.
PNP points to 2017 when then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft suspended a “right to work” law the moment veto referendum signatures were submitted – not when Ashcroft certified the referendum for the ballot.
But Hoskins has made it clear that protecting the new map is his priority: "I’m going to do everything I can to protect Gov. (Mike) Kehoe’s Missouri First Map – the map the General Assembly passed,” he said.
The signature verification process generally takes 8-10 weeks, but state law allows election officials to drag this out until July 2026. The state could then argue it is too late to suspend HB 1 because candidates have filed and primaries have been held.
PNP has vowed additional legal action if Hoskins does not suspend HB 1.
“If the secretary of state refuses to certify the referendum or attempts to put HB1 into effect prematurely, People Not Politicians is prepared to take immediate action in state court,” the campaign states.
The organization expects the state and allied intervenors to attempt procedural delays, but remains confident that Missouri’s courts will uphold voters’ constitutional rights.”
Missouri is one of 23 states that have some form of veto referendum process. Another state that allows it is Maine, where reformers are familiar with the procedural stalling tactics lawmakers and state officials on both sides of the aisle use to circumvent the will of voters.
In 2016, Maine became the first state in the nation to adopt ranked choice voting after a majority of voters approved Question 5. Then, after a rollercoaster of a legislative process on the issue in 2017, state lawmakers passed LD 1646, which delayed RCV and set it up for repeal.
Lawmakers did this even after voters packed committee rooms, thousands of calls were made to legislative offices, and voters made it clear that they wanted their vote on RCV respected.
The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, the same group that spearheaded the 2016 RCV campaign, launched a People’s Veto to overturn LD 1646, which was approved by voters on June 12, 2018, with a higher percentage of the vote than 2016.
Reformers, however, faced the same type of stalling tactics seen in Missouri. Not only did the legislature set RCV up for repeal, then-Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, tried to keep LD 1646 in place even when the People’s Veto was certified for the ballot.
In Maine, an action by the legislature being challenged by voters has to be suspended until a vote is held on the veto referendum. It took a court order to force Dunlap to implement RCV for the June 12 primary elections.
It looks like it will take a court order in Missouri to get state officials to comply with their own laws. Expect another lawsuit to be filed by People Not Politicians.
On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky) said the mid-cycle gerrymandering fight between the two major parties is going to “lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence."
“When it becomes so extreme – like if California has no Republican representatives after this is done or has one left, I think that makes people so dissatisfied, they think the electoral process isn’t working anymore. 'Maybe we have to resort to something else,'” he said.
Paul didn’t just call out Democrats in California, but both sides for escalating the situation.
These comments come at the end of a year that saw a surge of politically motivated violence and threats of violence, from the assassinations of Charlie Kirk and Democratic state legislators in Minnesota, to Indiana senators receiving death threats over refusing to gerrymander.
Paul believes mid-cycle gerrymandering adds more chaos and exacerbates a system in which people think their vote doesn’t matter – and that is a recipe for disaster.
Multiple polls show voters do not approve or like the gerrymandering that has occurred in 2025. The most recent poll this week came out of Maryland from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
According to the results, 81% of Maryland respondents said redrawing electoral districts to benefit a single party is “a major” problem for American democracy. Further, only 12% of respondents supported a redistricting process in which state legislators redraw districts.
The poll comes as an advisory commission commissioned by Gov. Wes Moore voted behind closed doors to move forward with the redistricting process mid-cycle. Currently, all but one of the state’s congressional districts are held by Democrats.
Democrats in the Maryland legislature previously decided not to hold a special session to redraw its maps.
With Christmas week coming up and New Years the following week, many of the reform campaigns IVN News is following are going to slow down their operations or take a break completely for the holidays.
However, Reform California’s Voter ID initiative is an exception as the group faces a December 31 deadline to gather and submit one million petition signatures – a tall and expensive order for any statewide initiative campaign in California.
To qualify for the ballot, close to 875,000 signatures will need to be verified. Ballot initiative campaigns always give themselves extra cushion just in case signatures cannot be verified or are disqualified, which is why Reform California is shooting for a million.
The group’s voter ID initiative requires every voter to present a government-issued ID when voting in person or provide the last 4 digits of their ID when voting by mail – which is now most voters in the state.
“This is going to be a popular reform measure,” said California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who is also the chair of Reform California. “Even a majority of Democrats support it, and 72% of Latinos support it.”
Reform California announced on December 4 that it had reached 750,000 signatures, meaning it had less than a month to collect the remaining 250,000 it needed. However, the campaign also tweeted 5 days later that it needed 300,000 signatures.
No updated numbers have been provided since then.
“Californians are speaking loud and clear: they want election integrity – and they’re ready to make history to get it,” DeMaio said.
A January 2025 poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies found in January that 52% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 93% of Republicans in California support a state requirement that voters show government-issued photo ID when voting in person.
The most outspoken opponents to voter ID are Democratic leaders who say it leads to voter suppression. Republican leaders say voter ID protects elections from fraud. But research shows both parties are wrong.
Election fraud in general is considered so rare in the U.S. that statistically it doesn’t exist (and this is using data compiled by the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation), including the type of fraud voter ID is supposed to prevent: voter impersonation.
Other research, including from Harvard, has found that not only does voter ID have no impact on election security, but there is also no evidence that it has a negative effect on voter turnout. This has led to some calling the whole debate on the issue a waste of time.
Still, as previously reported on IVN News, this is a nonpartisan issue Republicans can take the lead on in a deep blue state, particularly after a year in which they may have lost half of their congressional seats going into the 2026 midterms under Prop 50.
The campaign for State Question (SQ) 836 in Oklahoma released a new video featuring interviews with Republicans, Democrats, and independents at the Tulsa State Fair who all agree that the state’s taxpayer-funded elections should be open to all voters.
The Yes on 836 campaign is currently gathering signatures for its ballot initiative that, if approved by voters, implements a nonpartisan top-two open primary that allows all voters and candidates to participate on a single primary ballot, regardless of party.
Oklahoma uses a semi-closed primary election system, which means the parties eligible to hold primaries can decide whether or not to allow independent voters to participate in the most critical stage of the public elections process.
For the 2026-2027 cycle, the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian Parties will use closed primaries. State Democrats say they voted to keep their primary open to independents, but the Oklahoma Election Board claims they did not file the right notice in time.
The party is reportedly considering its legal options.
“Roughly one in five registered voters — almost 500,000 independents — will be barred from participating in taxpayer-funded primaries that effectively decide the vast majority of elected offices in the state,” the Yes on 836 campaign states.
It is noted in the video that “Oklahoma has a 68% uncontested rate. It’s the highest in the country. Politicians are not being held accountable term after term after term. They don’t have to run because no one is running against them.”
Even more seats are safe for one party, which means the most consequential vote is in the primaries, which limit choice for party members and bar independent and third-party voters entirely.
“Of the 445 county, state, and federal races up for election last cycle, only seven (about 2%) were decided in November general elections by fewer than 10 points,” Yes on 836 notes.
The remaining 98% of November races were blowouts, determined instead in June primaries or August runoffs, or ended on filing day when candidates ran unopposed.”
The campaign began gathering signatures in November. Margaret Kobos, the CEO and founder of Unite Oklahoma (which spearheaded SQ 836), expressed her optimism with IVN News about the initiative’s chances going into the new year.
“Oklahomans are ready for an open primary system where every voter matters and has a voice," she said. "We have been working hard, visiting communities across the state to ensure every voter has a chance to sign our petition and put this initiative to a vote of the people.”
Gerrymandering (Not as fun as it is to say) - Why and Why Not
