Libertarian Party of Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Libertarian Party is the state affiliate of the Libertarian Party in Oklahoma. It has been active in state politics since the 1970s, but due to Oklahoma's ballot access requirements the party has been an officially recognized party during only portions of the last twenty-five years. In 2016, The Oklahoma Libertarian Party regained ballot access. The state party has secured ballot access through at least 2024.

State party organization

State party affiliates and chairs

As of July 2022, the state party's Chair is Will Daugherty. Other state officers are Vice Chair Jeff Fortune, Secretary Cherise Norton, and Treasurer Todd Hagopian.
Former state chairs include James Beau Thouvenel, Kevin Hobbie, Chad Williams, Erin Adams, Tina Kelly, Steve Long, Seth Wheeler, Clark Duffe, Angelia O'Dell, Jimmy Cook, Steve Galpin, Chris Powell, Richard Prawdzienski, Robert Murphy, D. Frank Robinson, Tom Laurent, Gordon Mobley and Porter Davis.
The party has local affiliates in the following counties: Canadian, Cleveland, Oklahoma, Tulsa, and Washington.

Lawsuits

1976

The campaign of Eugene McCarthy won a ruling from the Oklahoma Supreme Court to place it's Independent electors on the ballot. The American Party, Communist Party, and OKLP all sought to have their candidates and electors put on the ballot as well. The Court ruled against the American Party, distinguishing between an Independent candidate and a candidate of a political party that has not met the requirements for recognition in the state of Oklahoma. After ruling against the American Party, the Court saw no need to hear similar cases brought by the Communist Party and the OKLP.

''Arutunoff v. Oklahoma State Election Board''

The OKLP challenged revocation of their official recognition, and ability to run candidates under the party label, by the state after the 1980 elections. State law required a party's presidential candidate to receive at least 10% of the vote to maintain ballot access. The 10th Circuit upheld the ruling against the OKLP.

1984 cases

With ninety days to gather over 44,000 signatures and hampered by both bad weather and harassment over petitioning on public property, the OKLP fell short gathering only 28,894 names. One day after being denied ballot access, the party filed suit claiming Oklahoma's ballot access laws were unconstitutional. The party won by default when the Attorney General's office missed a deadline to file a response during the proceedings after the lead attorney mistakenly believed his deadline was 5 days later. Twenty Libertarian candidates were nominated at a state convention.
After obtaining ballot status, the party also challenged state laws that guaranteed candidates' ballot order be listed by party in order of number of affiliated members. At the time, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 3-to-1 in the state and always appeared at the top of the ballot.
The ballot order law would later be found unconstitutional and in 1996 was replaced with determining ballot order by lottery.
Two petitioners were arrested and a third ticketed while gathering signatures at the State Fairgrounds. Ballot drive chairman D. Frank Robinson challenged the legality of the arrests, resulting in a ruling from Judge David Russell upholding the right to petition on public property.

''Rainbow Coalition v. Oklahoma State Election Board''

The Rainbow Coalition, OKLP, and the Populist Party sought to overturn the state's ballot access law, challenging both the petitioning deadline and the signature requirement. The 10th Circuit upheld Judge Stephanie Seymour's decision against the plaintiffs that upheld the ballot access law.

''Atherton v. Ward''

After the OKLP lost official recognition following the 1996 election the state election board changed the affiliation of all registered Libertarian voters to Independent.
During the time since the ruling in ''Rainbow Coalition v. Oklahoma State Election Board'' the state's voter rolls had been completely computerized.
Oklahoma Libertarians sought to be able to continue to be registered with their party of choice.
Judge Wayne Alley ruled in favor of the party.
The resulting process was that once a party fails to retain ballot access all those registered with the party are changed to Independent but any voter would be allowed to register with the previously recognized party for up to four years after they lost official status.
In 2003 Ed Henke sought to be a candidate in a special election for state Senate, but was prohibited from filing because of his Libertarian registration.

''Clingman v. Beaver''

Oklahoma has a semi-closed primary system in which a political party may choose either to allow only voters registered as affiliated with the party to participate or to also allow Independents as well.
The OKLP wanted the ability to more fully exercise their freedom of association by allowing voters registered with any other party to also participate in their primaries.
The party won on appeal but the case then went to the Supreme Court where the decision of the 10th Circuit was overturned.

'' Yes on Term Limits v. Savage''

Former Libertarian Party national director Paul Jacob worked with Oklahomans in Action to gather signatures on an initiative to put a Taxpayer Bill of Rights measure on the ballot for a statewide vote. In 2007 Jacob and two others were indicted for out-of-state petitioners. A conviction would have carried a maximum fine of $25,000, and the maximum jail sentence of ten years in prison. The state statute criminalizing the hiring of out-of-state petitioners was overturned by the 10th Circuit followed by a denial of Attorney General Drew Edmondson's request for an en banc rehearing at which point the charges were dropped as the statute was unenforceable.

''Barr v. Ziriax''

LP presidential nominee Bob Barr, seeking to get on the ballot as an Independent, challenged Oklahoma's 3% petition requirement. Judge David Russell issued a short decision against Barr. Russell has a history of upholding ballot access restrictions.

''Oklahoma Libertarian Party v. Ziriax''

After gathering over 57 thousand signatures to meet the requirement of 51,739 to obtain ballot access for the 2012 elections, the OKLP sought a preliminary injunction due to the deadline to submit the petition being moved up to March 1 from May 1. Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti denied the injunction, resulting in the OKLP not being able to place candidates on the ballot in 2012. The March 1 petition deadline for political parties remains in place.

''Lawhorn v. Ziriax''

The only alternative party to have ballot access for the 2012 United States presidential election in Oklahoma was the Americans Elect party which was not fielding a candidate. Leadership of the state party organization for Americans Elect, including chair Rex Lawhorn, sought to have Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson placed on the Oklahoma ballot as the Americans Elect candidate. The national party organization opposed the effort and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against Lawhorn. This resulted in Oklahoma voters being allowed only two choices for president for the third election in a row.

''McCraw v. Oklahoma City''

The OKLP joined several other individuals and organizations in challenging an ordinance enacted by the City of Oklahoma City to restrict panhandling. OKLP Vice-chair Tina Kelly was involved in the case as it pertained to restricting the ability to engage in political petitioning. The city amended the ordinance to focus on pedestrian safety. In December 2018, Judge Joe L. Heaton upheld the ordinance but on appeal the 10th Circuit found in favor of the plaintiffs.

Election history

Presidential elections

The Libertarian Party's nominee appeared on Oklahoma's presidential ballot in the 1980's and 1990's, before losing ballot access after the 2000 election. Since 2016, the Libertarian Party's nominee has appeared on every Oklahoma presidential ballot.

The party had the national party's presidential candidate on the ballot in 1980 (1.2% of the statewide vote was received), 1984 (0.7% of the statewide vote was received), 1988 (0.5% of the statewide vote was received), 1992 (0.3% of the statewide vote was received), 1996 (0.5% of the statewide vote was received), 2000 (0.5% of the statewide vote was received), 2016 (5.8% of the statewide vote received), and 2020 (1.6% of the statewide vote received).

1976

Oklahoma city restaurateur John Vernon 20.22% of the vote for the vice-presidential nomination at the Libertarian National Convention. Running as an Independent, Porter Davis got 36% of the vote for State House in district 88. Davis would later be elected to one term as a state Representative as a Republican in 1982.

1980

The party successfully petitioned for ballot access in the state for the first time and in addition to Ed Clark for president had four candidates for office including Jim Rushing and Frank Robinson who faced each other for the 5th Congressional District nomination as well as Anne Hill and Agnes Wampler, who both sought to become the Tulsa County Clerk in the first Libertarian Party primaries in Oklahoma. Rushing won with 54% of the vote while Hill took over 90%.

1984

After failing to get the required number of signatures for ballot access, the party sued and was ordered on the ballot for 1984. There were no primaries as the court order stipulated that the party nominate by convention. In addition to David Bergland

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