If Oklahoma were to adopt a California-style “open primary” system, as is being promoted via an initiative petition, it would serve to boost the chances of left-wing politicians regardless of voter wishes, U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen warns.

“California’s ‘top two’ election system has steadily elevated increasingly liberal policies in that state, and there’s no reason to think that same system will somehow have the opposite effect in Oklahoma,” said Brecheen, R-Coalgate. “We all know what this is designed to do: It’s designed to help the election chances of more left-leaning politicians in Oklahoma. Vote No!!!”

A group calling itself Oklahoma United is seeking to eliminate Oklahoma’s current election system, which allows Republican voters to pick Republican nominees in party primaries while Democratic voters do the same in their party’s primaries, with the two parties’ candidates then facing off in the November general election along with any independent candidates who file for an office.

Instead, Oklahoma United’s State Question 836 would require that all Oklahoma candidates—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—be placed on a single primary ballot with the two candidates receiving the most votes advancing to the general-election ballot. That would largely mirror California elections, where voters’ November choices are often limited to two Democrats and no Republicans.

The adoption of the “open primary” system in California helped grease the electoral skids for increasingly far-left politicians in that state who now often win by appealing to the most liberal voters rather than the broader electorate because of the way the open-primary process works in real life.

For example, in the 2010 election for California attorney general, conducted before California implemented “open primaries,” Democrat Kamala Harris narrowly beat her Republican opponent, receiving 46.1 percent of the vote to 45.3 percent.

But in 2016, after California changed to the “top two” or “open primary” model, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate in a November election where she and another Democrat were the only options.

Had Oklahoma United’s California-primary system been in place in Oklahoma in 2018, voters’ choices would have been limited to two liberal Democrats in that year’s governor’s race.

In Oklahoma’s 2018 gubernatorial race, there were 10 candidates who filed to run as Republicans and two who filed to run as Democrats. In the June 2018 primary, 452,606 Oklahomans cast a vote for a Republican gubernatorial candidate compared to just 395,494 votes cast for a Democrat.

But under the California model, the November ballot that year would have pitted Democrat Drew Edmondson against Democrat Connie Johnson with no Republican option for Oklahoma voters. Because the Republican vote was split 10 ways in the primary, no GOP candidate received more votes than the second-place finisher in the Democratic primary.

[Photo from U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen's Facebook page]