Published: August 01, 2003 12:00 am            

Voting record won't fall during mid-term election

A record 1,463,758 votes were cast in 2004, the most recent Oklahoma general election. There are more Oklahomans now so the record should fall on Nov. 7. Right?

Wrong. It won't happen.

Only twice in the 25 presidential elections since statehood has the mid-term election drawn more votes than the one when presidential electors headed the ballot two years earlier. And the most recent was 76 years ago.

The first time, in 1922, was the second general election in which all American women could vote. It may have taken that long for many of them to get used to the idea and to register.

The other was in 1930 when the voters decided Alfalfa Bill Murray was the governor they wanted to serve them in the worsening Great Depression.

In the 2000-2002 cycle Oklahomans gave President George W. Bush their electoral vote in his victory over Democrat Al Gore with 1,463,758 votes cast. When Democrat Brad Henry two years later defeated Republican Steve Largent for governor the turnout was 1,035,620, a record for a mid-term vote but 428,138 shy of the 2000 count.

State questions placed on the ballot by initiative petition or legislative referendum can increase the turnout significantly, but none of this year's proposals appears controversial enough to make much difference.

In 1908, the first presidential election in which Oklahomans could vote, 254,260 did so. They favored Democrat William Jennings Bryan who lost nationally to Republican William Howard Taft.

We topped the million-vote mark in 1972 when we helped Republican Richard Nixon defeat Democrat George McGovern.

Our Oklahoma votes are more important in mid-term elections than in presidential years. Our puny seven electoral votes are not likely to decide an election, and only one state executive office -- for one of the three Corporation Commission offices -- is on the ballot in those years.

Executive offices on the mid-term ballot are governor, lieutenant governor, auditor and inspector, attorney general, superintendent of schools, insurance commissioner and commissioner of labor.

Furthermore, all the elected state trial judge offices (district judges and associate district judges) are up for election in mid-term years. So are district attorneys of all the state districts.

We have voted for governors 25 times, going Democrat 20 times and Republican five. We have elected only three GOP chief executives, but two -- Henry Bellmon and Frank Keating -- were elected twice. Dewey Bartlett was the third.

Oklahoma governors were term-limited from seeking re-election until a constitutional amendment took effect in 1966.

        

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