OK for Life's Lauinger: oppose SQ 836, pro-abortion "gimmick"

Oklahomans for Life: Oppose State Question 836: 

Abortion Supporters Want to Change Elections in Oklahoma to Elect

More Pro-Abortion Candidates; Decline to Sign SQ 836 Initiative Petition

(Oklahomans for Life, Nov. 22nd) – Pro-abortion political operatives have seized upon a new gimmick to try to elect more pro-abortion candidates to public office in Oklahoma. Their strategy is to confuse voters with appeals to “fairness,” and “democracy” and “disenfranchised” voters, while seeking to impose on our state an election process that would result in the election of more pro-abortion candidates.

Their mechanism is State Question 836 (SQ 836), an initiative petition to turn Oklahoma’s voting system on its head. This approach has various labels – open primary, jungle primary, California system. It is a manipulative scheme which games the system and rigs the results in such a way that the consequence would be the election of more pro-abortion candidates.

We urge you to oppose SQ 836 and not sign the initiative petition if someone with a clipboard in a public place asks you to.

There are several basic realities to keep in mind.

• The Party Platform of the Democratic Party is pro-abortion.
• The Party Platform of the Republican Party is pro-life.
• Democrats in Congress - U.S. Senate and House - and in the Oklahoma Legislature, Senate and House, vote virtually 100% pro-abortion.
• Republicans in Congress - Senate and House - and in the Oklahoma Legislature, Senate and House, vote almost 100% pro-life.

Oklahoma is a pro-life state. More registered voters are Republican than Democrat. Thus, there typically are more Republicans who file to run for elective office than Democrats. This reality is what abortion supporters intend to use against the pro-life Republican Party with SQ 836. A mathematical example illustrates their strategy:

• A hypothetical legislative district has 60% registered Republican voters and 40% Democrats. Four Republicans file to run for an elective office, and two Democrats file. Under the current system, one Republican would emerge from the Republican Primary to face the winner of the Democratic Primary in the General Election. 
• Under the scheme proposed by SQ 836, there would not be separate Party primaries, but just one Primary which included candidates of all parties, with the two getting the most votes advancing to the General Election. Under the hypothetical example above, envision the four Republican candidates splitting the 60% Republican support four ways, each getting about 15% of the total votes, and the two Democratic candidates splitting the 40% Democrat support two ways, each getting 20% of the total votes.

Under SQ 836, only two names appear on the ballot in the General Election, the two with the most votes in the Primary, and in this example, that would be the two Democrats from the pro-abortion Party, each of whom got 20% of the votes.

To understand how harmful SQ 836 is to the unborn child’s right to life, a recent real-life example illustrates. In the 2018 race for Governor of Oklahoma, there were ten Republican candidates, and only two Democratic candidates. Both Democrats were pro-abortion. The Republican candidates split the pro-life vote ten ways, while the Democrat candidates split the pro-abortion vote just two ways. If the 2018 Governor’s election had been held under the terms of SQ 836, we would not have had one of the most pro-life Governors in the nation these past seven years. Our only choices in the 2018 General Election would have been the two pro-abortion candidates from the minority party.

We urge you to oppose SQ 836 and not sign the initiative petition.

Thank you.

Tony Lauinger
State Chairman - Oklahomans For Life