Those wishing to eliminate Oklahoma’s election system and replace it with a “top two” election system similar to California’s model, which simply places all candidates on a single ballot in a race involving all voters of all parties, claim it will boost voter turnout.

Backers of State Question 836, which would implement the California system in Oklahoma, have repeatedly pointed to Oklahoma City’s mayoral election as an example of how the proposed system would work.

Oklahoma United, a group promoting SQ 836, complains on its website that Oklahoma’s voter participation rate “was last in the nation” in November 2024, and claims that is because the state’s current general elections, which pit Republican nominees against Democratic nominees and independent candidates, “are of little consequence.”

By contrast, Oklahoma United declares that every “city and town in Oklahoma already uses an open primary ballot today when they vote for mayor,” similar to the California system, and that “local government approval ratings and electorate satisfaction are consistently much higher than they are for the state Legislature, which is elected via the current closed primary system.”

But this week’s Oklahoma City mayoral race defied predictions of massive voter participation in California-style “top two” elections.

Rather than seeing a tidal wave of voters rushing to the polls to participate in a California-style election, turnout in the mayoral race was anemic. Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt received the active support of less than one in 20 residents of Oklahoma City in his successful reelection bid, based on election returns and Census data.

In contrast, members of the Oklahoma Legislature routinely receive support from one in three residents in their districts.

In fact, members of the Oklahoma Senate have been elected by almost as many raw votes as the number of votes cast for Holt this week, even though the population of state Senate districts is an average of 82,573 Oklahomans, while the Oklahoma City mayor’s race occurred in a community with more than 700,000 people.

In the Feb. 10 mayoral election, Holt received 33,608 votes out of 38,860 cast in a very low-turnout affair. According to the U.S. Census, Oklahoma City is home to an estimated 712,919 people.

That means Holt received the active support of less than 5 percent of Oklahoma City residents in his reelection bid.

In a special legislative election conducted the same day as Holt’s mayoral race, Republican Dillon Travis was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in House District 35, a rural district that includes all or parts of five counties. Travis received 2,907 votes in his race, which equates to roughly 7.4 percent of residents in the average House district, which held 39,243 individuals at the time of the post-2020 redistricting.

Because it was a special election, turnout in Travis’s race was far lower than turnout for typical general elections in legislative races, yet the share of district residents casting votes for Travis easily surpassed the share of votes cast by Oklahoma City residents for Holt.

Oklahoma’s current election system for legislative and statewide races allows Republican voters to pick Republican nominees in party primaries while Democratic voters do the same in their party’s primaries. The two parties’ nominees then face off in the November general election along with any independent candidates who file for office.

But under State Question 836, all Oklahoma candidates—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—would be placed on a single ballot with all voters participating. The two candidates receiving the most votes would then proceed to the November general election, even if they are both members of the same political party.

That would largely mirror California elections, where voters’ November choices are often limited to two members of the same party, and even statewide races have involved only two Democratic candidates.

Supporters of SQ 836, including Holt, have often touted Oklahoma municipal elections as the ideal since they are run on a California-style model, although those races are technically nonpartisan.

But those municipal races routinely draw far worse turnout than races run on Oklahoma’s traditional election model, such as those for the Oklahoma Legislature.

In fact, in many instances, the raw number of votes received by winning legislative candidates almost equals the raw number cast for Holt this week, despite legislative districts having only a fraction of the citizens that live in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma state senators have routinely received more than 20,000 votes in general-election races even though their districts are home to an average of just 82,573 Oklahomans, a fraction of the estimated 712,919 people that Holt could have drawn support from in Oklahoma City.

For example, during the Nov. 5, 2024, general election, state Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, was elected with 30,049 votes, receiving nearly as many raw votes in her race as Holt did in his mayoral bid.

That same day, state Sen. Julie McIntosh, R-Porter, received 28,812 votes to win her race, a figure equating to nearly 35 percent of residents in the average state Senate district.

Sacchieri’s predecessor, former state Sen. Jessica Garvin, R-Duncan, was similarly elected in 2020 with 30,383 votes.

In 2018, Stephanie Bice, a Republican who now serves as a member of Congress, won election to the Oklahoma Senate in an Oklahoma County seat while receiving 24,465 votes.

Like nearly all Republican members of the Oklahoma Legislature, Sacchieri opposes SQ 836, in part because she said it will reduce the influence of a majority of voters. Rather than make voter turnout increase, Sacchieri said SQ 836 would “actually do the opposite.”

“It would silence the will of the people in my view,” Sacchieri said.

In a race with “two good candidates” that split the conservative vote, Sacchieri noted SQ 836 could then default the race to other candidates with less mainstream Oklahoma appeal.

Records show that scenario would have likely occurred in the 2018 gubernatorial 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 SQ 836’s California model, the November ballot that year would have pitted Democratic candidate Drew Edmondson against fellow Democrat Connie Johnson with no Republican option. 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.

After the polls closed, Holt attempted to put the best possible spin on being re-elected via extremely low turnout, declaring on X that Oklahoma City’s anemic mayoral vote was “an overwhelming mandate” and “validation for our unique political culture and our direction as a city.”

In contrast, Sacchieri was surprised to learn Holt was elected mayor of Oklahoma City with only 33,608 votes, barely outpacing the 30,049 votes she received in her state Senate race, but said those stats highlight the real-world negative consequences associated with “top two” California-style elections.

“That speaks for itself, I would say,” Sacchieri said.

McIntosh said voter engagement is tied to voters’ perception of the legitimacy of the process. That means the very low turnout in California-style elections like the race for Oklahoma City mayor is telling, and is the much higher turnout generated through Oklahoma’s existing election system for legislative and statewide races.

“If you feel like your voice matters,” McIntosh said, “then you’re more likely to go vote.”