Group to make another push to become recognized as Oklahoma political party

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Sooner State Party is expected to make a second attempt at collecting enough signatures to become the state’s fourth recognized political party.

Leaders of the proposed Sooner State Party announced in March that they had fallen just 410 signatures short of the nearly 34,200 needed to become a recognized political party. 

C.J. Webber-Neal, co-founder, said organizers plan to  make a second attempt to qualify. Now, they need to collect 33,483 signatures based on the turnout for November gubernatorial election. 

Oklahoma recognizes the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties, despite a growing number of independents who are not allowed to vote in those party’s primaries and runoffs. 

“What we are trying to do is provide a party where independents will always have an option to vote,” Webber-Neal said.

Previously, Democrats had allowed independents to vote in their primaries, but the party did not open their elections to independents this year. Independents, which compose about 1 in 5 voters, are not a recognized political party in Oklahoma.

The signature drive is set to kickoff at 6 p.m. Nov. 16 at the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library, 300 Park Avenue in Oklahoma City.

As of Nov. 1, Oklahoma had slightly more than 1.3 million registered Republicans, 627,581 Democrats, 23,704 Libertarians and 500,175 independents, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board.

“We’ve always believed that if tax dollars are going to go towards elections, and yet you are basically at the will of other parties to determine whether or not you can actually exercise that franchise, that’s wrong if you are kept out of that,” he said.

He described the Sooner State Party, which is using a bison as a mascot, as being fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.

Misha Mohr, State Election Board spokeswoman, said the group will have one year from the time they provide notice to the State Election Board to collect the signatures.