A November 2025 report from the Niskanen Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates expanded immigration and refugee resettlement, is receiving greater scrutiny for its suggestion that more immigrants should be imported into mostly rural counties across the country, including in Oklahoma.

In “Mapping America’s Immigration Needs: A County-level Model for Matching Migrants to Local Economies,” the Niskanen Center argues that its Migration Match Index data tool will help officials and immigrants “make better-informed decisions about resettlement and workforce planning.”

In Oklahoma, the Niskanen Center identified 21 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties as places that could accommodate a significant number of foreign immigrants. Most of the identified counties are in rural areas.

The center’s Oklahoma list includes Beaver, Beckham, Blaine, Carter, Cimarron, Cotton, Custer, Dewey, Ellis, Garfield, Harper, Jackson, Kingfisher, Love, Noble, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pontotoc, Tulsa, Woods, and Woodward counties.

The report has drawn renewed attention due to the significant, negative impacts that have accrued in various communities that have seen a massive infusion of immigrants from third-world countries in recent years. Those examples range from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where widespread government fraud has been disproportionately tied to Somali immigrants, to France, which is currently dealing with riots whose participants are often recent immigrants from Muslim countries.

In Oklahoma, the potential for organized groups to effectively seize political control that far exceeds their actual representation among the general population is aided by the practice of scheduling many key elections on obscure dates that draw very low turnout.

For example, Oklahoma is one of only 12 states mandating that school-board elections be conducted off-cycle on low-turnout dates for which there is little voter awareness.

Oklahoma school-board primary elections are held on the second Tuesday in February every year, unless there is a presidential election, while school-board general elections are conducted the first Tuesday of every April.

Research done by Americans for Prosperity–Oklahoma found that turnout for the April 2, 2024, school-board elections in Oklahoma averaged only 6 percent of voters. Only one school district in Oklahoma had voter turnout exceeding 25 percent that day, and some districts reported less than 1 percent turnout.

In comparison, 64 percent of eligible Oklahoma voters participated in the November 2024 general election.

Many local government elections are held on similarly obscure dates. For instance, many city mayoral elections were held on Feb. 10 this year. Turnout for some of those races was incredibly low. While Oklahoma City is home to more than 700,000 people, only 38,878 voted in the mayoral election, or roughly one in 20 residents. Krebs, located in Pittsburg County, has an estimated population of 2,066. Only 263 people cast ballots in the mayor’s race. Wewoka, in Seminole County, has an estimated population of 3,027, but just 125 individuals voted in this year’s mayoral election.

In recent years, several bills have been filed to move school-board elections to higher-turnout dates. While several have advanced through the legislative process, none has become law.