A series of bills that would alter voting procedures have advanced in Oklahoma’s legislative process.
Since the start of the legislative session on Feb. 3, the House Elections and Ethics Committee has taken action on various bills, moving them onto oversight committees.
House Bill 1515, by Rep. Molly Jenkins, R-Coyle, eked out of the committee by a 4-3 vote. If passed into law, it would require voters casting their ballots through the mail to state a reason why they could not vote in person, whether that be during early voting or on election day.
Jenkins said in a committee meeting, voters’ ballots would not be accepted or rejected on the basis of their reason. A mail-in ballot would only be rejected if it did not list a reason at all, she specified.
Jenkins said she wants to “strengthen the integrity of voting.”
“When a person has to write down a reason for what they're doing, perhaps it will give them pause to think about voting is not necessarily something that should just be a convenience,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins specifically referenced calls by President Donald Trump to turn to a one-day voting system.
Rep. Mickey Dollens, D-OKC, pushed back against Jenkins’ bill by comparing it to requiring a reason to exercise other rights, such as to practice a religion. Despite Dollens’ and others’ opposition, the bill passed.
House Bill 1010, also by Jenkins, advanced out of the committee by a vote of 5-1. The bill seeks to dissuade state party delegates from selecting a presidential candidate other than the winner of the state’s primary election. If passed, it would require the Secretary of the State Election Board to calculate the cost of including the primary-winning candidate on the ballot and then charge that amount to a state party that did not nominate said candidate.
The version that advanced out of the committee added an amendment that would provide two exceptions to those charges. One specified that the bill would not apply when the winner of the state primary came in second place or lower in a partisan primary nationwide, and that candidate vacated the race and endorsed another. The other exception would be if no candidate at the national nominating convention for that party won the majority of delegates on the first vote.
The measure appears targeted at a scenario similar to the one in which Kamala Harris secured the Democratic nomination in the 2024 election after former President Joe Biden, who won Oklahoma’s Democratic primary, dropped out of the race.
House Bill 1007, by Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, passed the Government Oversight Committee on a 5-1 vote. It bars the use of student IDs as identification when voting.
When introducing his bill to the committee, Olsen said university students can obtain IDs without being U.S. citizens. He worries that allowing the use of school IDs to vote would lead to noncitizen voting. He said that he wasn’t aware of any prior instances of voter fraud related to student IDs but that he feels Oklahomans would welcome measures designed to prevent this from happening in the future.
House Bill 2191 by Reps. Max Wolfley, R-OKC, and Eric Roberts, R-OKC, also sailed through the committee on a 5-1 vote. It would require notaries who have been approved to notarize more than 20 mail-in ballots for any given election to submit their logs for those elections. It would charge a $500 fine to those who did not, as well as suspend their notary appointment for eight years. The same penalties would apply to notaries who exceeded the ballot limit.
Although the limit on notarizing mail-in ballots has been in place for over a decade, notaries have not been required to turn in logs before.
Dollens, the sole opposing vote against the bill, argued it would hurt rural communities that may have a shortage of notaries by strictly enforcing the limit.
House Bill 2106, by Reps. Mike Osburn, R-Edmond, and Dell Kirbs, R-Shawnee, would alter Oklahoma’s election schedule so that there are only five elections in any given year. For the 2025 calendar year, Oklahoma currently has one election scheduled per month, a total of twelve. The bill once again passed through the committee on a 5-1 vote.
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