A group calling itself Oklahoma United is seeking to eliminate Oklahoma’s current election system and replace it with one modeled after California’s elections.

The proposal is drawing strong pushback from Oklahomans of all walks of life—including a former Californian.

“The thought of ‘open primaries’ in the state of Oklahoma is absolutely terrifying to me as a former Californian who went through it,” said Julie Collier, an Oklahoma teacher who lived for many years in California. “This will not be a good thing for the state of Oklahoma.”

Under current Oklahoma law, Republican voters pick Republican nominees in party primaries while Democratic voters do the same in their party’s primaries. The two parties’ candidates then face off in the November general election along with any independent candidates who file for an office.

But Oklahoma United’s State Question 836 would require that all Oklahoma candidates—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—be placed on a single primary ballot with all voters choosing from among the entire list of candidates, regardless of the voter’s political registration. Then the two candidates receiving the most votes advance to the general-election ballot.

That would largely mirror California elections. California adopted Oklahoma United’s preferred election system by public vote in 2010. Collier said the “open primary” system transformed California from a state that typically leaned Democrat but where Republicans were still able to compete to what California is today: A state completely dominated by the most extreme elements of the Democratic Party.

“That was the beginning of the end of California,” Collier said. “That was the demise of California, which led to the Democrat supermajority that we now see and are horrified by. Whoever is pushing to have ‘open primaries’ in the state of Oklahoma, all they want to do is turn Oklahoma into a California 2.0. They do not have Oklahomans’ best interests at heart.”

Proposition 14 in 2010 eliminated party primaries in California. Instead, all candidates who filed were placed on a single ballot with the top two vote recipients proceeding to the November general election.

Lack of Political Competitiveness

Proposition 14 passed by a relatively narrow margin, receiving just under 54 percent of the vote.

In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama carried California with nearly 61 percent of the vote. Legislative races conducted that same cycle resulted in Democrats controlling the state Senate by a margin of 24-14 and the California Assembly by a margin of 50-27 with one independent and two vacancies during the 2009-2010 session of the California Legislature.

In 2024, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried California with a slightly lower vote share than Obama in 2008 with Harris receiving a little over 58 percent of the vote. But in the legislature, Democrats now have a 30-10 margin in the California Senate and 60-20 margin in the state assembly even though the partisan leanings of the state were actually slightly less Democratic than in 2008.

Prior to the adoption of the “open primary” system, California still had major political races that were competitive with both political parties vying for voters’ support.

In the 2010 election for California attorney general, conducted the same year voters were asked to shift to “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” model, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate in a November election where she and another Democrat were the only options.

Conservatives Disenfranchised

The California system touted by Oklahoma United routinely restricts voters’ choices in general elections to officials from only one party.

Collier recalled that numerous races provided “zero options” for her because both candidates on the November ballot were liberal Democrats.

“I was completely disenfranchised as a conservative voter,” Collier said.

The lack of political competitiveness has resulted in very low voter turnout in California elections.

For example, in the June 7, 2022, jungle primary election in California, just 27 percent of turnout-eligible voters participated. That ballot included a governor’s race that drew 28 candidates, multiple other statewide races that drew multiple candidates, two U.S. Senate races that drew at least 10 candidates apiece, and congressional races.

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.

Collier noted that California’s primary system also encouraged more political games, such as Democrat campaign donors funding independent expenditure campaigns to tout Republican candidates they perceive as the weakest general-election option.

“They just started playing these unbelievable political funding games,” Collier said.

Over time, this allowed the Democratic Party in California to pull more and more to the extreme left.

“I know the other side tries to sway voters into thinking that, ‘Oh, if we have “open primaries” it’s less polarizing. You get more choices,’” Collier said. “No. You don’t. You get the choices that are actually funded by leftist organizations that really don’t have true Oklahomans, especially rural Oklahoma, at heart.”

Collier grew up in Oklahoma but moved to California to attend college and worked there for many years before returning home. She said one of the benefits of her return is the chance to participate in a political process where she has a real choice of candidates.

“It’s been refreshing to be able to vote for true conservatives in Oklahoma,” Collier said.

She says Oklahomans should not be complacent and recognize the threat the “open primaries” proposal represents to sound governance.

“I know it’s very easy to be just like, ‘That’s never going to happen here,’” Collier said. “I promise you, we were all saying that back in the day in California, and many of us have moved.”