This video was made from one of our ROPE Report Live podcasts (2.9.24).
If you’ve always wanted to look up – and/or understand bills once you’ve looked them up – check out this short video tutorial that can help you make a bit of sense out of the sometimes non-sensical!
Jenni White 2.11.24
Last week, we had our friends Jana Belcher and Carrie Bertrand from the Constitutional Home Educators Alliance, to talk about some REALLY HORRIBLE bills that have been filed which would adversely effect home education here in Oklahoma.
Below are a couple of video clips from that interview, with captions so that you know what was discussed in each. Bottom line, you may or may not homeschool, but homeschooling in Oklahoma is the freest form of education not only in our own state, but in much of the country as well. If Oklahoma homeschool freedom goes – individual freedom will eventually go too as we’re all funneled into government schools.
If you want to read about each bill after you watch the videos, you can find all the information on the CHEA website here.
Jenni White 2.11.24
This last week, we had Wendi Montgomery Dial on the podcast again – this time to talk about bills in the legislature that need our attention during the regular session of 2024.
The following video clips a bit of the podcast. If you want a brief synopsis of what Ranked-Choice voting is and a list of the bills Wendi is following this session so far, please watch. For a much more complete round-up of these bills, however, please look below the video, where I’ve pasted Wendi’s substack on the bills she’s tracking (with permission).
PLEASE! Contact your Senator and Representative and tell them that you’ll need their help getting the good bills heard (give them the bill numbers) and the bad bills OUT OF COMMITTEE. Session flies and sometimes, before you know it, bad bills have been assigned to a committee and are voted out to the floor by legislators who NEVER HEARD FROM THEIR CONSTITUENTS.
If you don’t know who your legislator is, or how to get in touch with them, start here.
by Wendi Montgomery Dial, Oklahoma State Director of Restore Liberty
This legislative session in Oklahoma, we have some very brave legislators who get it. They understand the issues and they see the writing on the wall. We have a growing number of representatives in our state that are working to help clean up our elections, so that We The People can retrieve our voices and our votes from a system that has stealthily tried to silence us completely and take over our state and our country. That is the only conclusion to come to after 3 years of watching election after election being stolen from the people in our state and across the country.
The best list that I have seen to date of steps to be taken to secure our elections still comes from someone Oklahomans are familiar with, former military intelligence Captain, Seth Keshel. He put together a list of 10 Points to True Election Integrity over a year ago, and this list remains, to my mind, in need of no alteration as a place to begin to reclaim our elections. The list is in his Substack here. In Oklahoma, this session we have legislation that will address several of these points, some legislation that makes little sense, and we are missing legislation to address at least one other important issue, which falls under the category of a rather large elephant in the room.
Legislation That We Must Have
SB1659 Stewart- Reregisters all Oklahomans to vote and requires proof of citizenship and residency in order to register to vote. Proof of citizenship includes a birth certificate, naturalization certificate, citizenship certificate, passport.
This is a bill that addresses a number one concern of election integrity experts. Our voter rolls. Bloated voter rolls are an obvious danger. When your rolls are so hopelessly bloated, any ineligible registrations are easy to hide. Ineligible registrations can be used to order absentee ballots by bad actors hoping to manipulate the results of any election. Reregistration and archiving old voter rolls is the most efficient way to clean up our voter rolls which have many errors. 104,000 invalid registrations were admitted to by the Secretary of the Election Board on video, as he testified in the House Elections and Ethics Committee against HB3677 by Sean Roberts, which would have reregistered Oklahomans on March 1, 2022. Watch here. That’s a lot of registrations that can affect a lot of races, including statewide and national races. There was no explanation forthcoming as to why these registrations were still on Oklahoma voter rolls. Had this legislation passed then, we would have completed reregistration by now and had clean voter rolls for 2024. As it stands, because the committee refused to pay just a million dollars and look into how to reregister and not run afoul of federal voter protection laws, our rolls are still compromised and bloated for this Presidential election.
SB2034 Dahm– Restricts absentee voting to military overseas and the truly infirmed. It is vital that we go back to the good old days of needing a very good excuse not to show up at the polls to vote, in order to secure our elections. We have all seen the last few years how mail in and absentee ballots can work with bloated voter rolls to compromise our elections. This, along with SB1659, would go a very long way to securing our elections in the State of Oklahoma. We should all be willing to make sure that we are in our homes once every four years in order to vote in person in our Presidential elections and once every two years to vote in our Congressional races. We must make sure that we consolidate our elections back to a single general election day for all of the matters that require a vote, or to just a couple of election days every couple of years. Why are we conducting several elections every year?
SB1414 Burns– Requires Photo ID to vote. Provides that a photo ID card be developed that includes a photo of the voter which would only be used to vote and provided to all registered voters free of charge.
SB1991 Jett, SB1610 Daniels, HB3156 Roberts, HB3592 Hill/Lepak, HJR1048 Roberts – Bans Ranked Choice Voting or any other form of voting by ranking candidates by preference. HJR1048 would amend the Constitution of Oklahoma to ban the practice in all local, county, state, and federal elections.
Ranked Choice Voting, or rather Ranked ‘Choice’ Voting has several problems, not the least of which is that votes are redistributed round over round resulting in the erosion of the lead of a candidate and the loss of an election by the person the most people vote for as their top candidate.
Besides the issue of redistribution of votes of losing candidates, the practice results in the reinforcement of the two party system, as moderates from other parties reach the bottom quickly and their votes end up redistributed to the more well known party candidates. The voters cannot vote against something; they can just rank a candidate lower than others, but they must vote for all candidates. Extreme candidates are more likely to win as the moderates get pushed out. Voters are actually disenfranchised as ballot exhaustion occurs because ballots are cast out if the voter doesn’t fill out the ballot properly and rank all the candidates, resulting in no more votes being available on the ballot to count as rounds progress. Due to the confusion of the process, localities that have implemented ranked choice voting have, not shockingly, experienced LOWER voter turnout. Also problematic is the necessity to move ballots to a centralized counting center for multiple rounds of counting, yielding chain of custody concerns, and it takes WEEKS to report the results of the election.
HB3080 Hayes– Makes general election day a holiday.
SJR23 Bergstrom– Strengthens language on what constitutes a qualified elector-only citizens of the US over 18 and residents of the state would be allowed to vote.
Bills We Like
HB3815 Dollens– This bill prohibits foreign funding for ballot measures in Oklahoma. We are not sure why it’s necessary when all we have to do is point to the ‘free and fair’ language of the Oklahoma Constitution to understand that it is already prohibited. However, this would be one bill grounded soundly in constitutional principle.
SB1374 Dahm– Watermarks absentee ballots with a symbol authorized by the State of Oklahoma. Any ballot without the watermark would be rejected, not counted, and retained.
SB2000 Deevers– Requires an oath to be taken by voters to attest to their physical address to obtain a ballot. If the voter refuses a provisional ballot is issued. This would result in the requirement of the address to be validated before the vote would be counted.
SB2032 Stewart- Provides that anyone receiving an absentee ballot through electronic submission must return it by hand delivery, US Mail or a private mail service.
HB3584 Pae– Places a space for voters under the US Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates to read “None of These Candidates”, for voters to reject the selections of the major parties.
Bills That Make Us Scratch Our Heads
SB1989 Haste and HB4127 Swope– Allows the various county election boards to devise a plan with the county commissioners by which the county employees may fulfill duties of Poll Officials. With citizens who wish to volunteer in their elections waiting on phone calls and hundreds of names on lists that the parties in the counties must compile, this bill is certainly mystifying. The last thing we need, in our opinion, is the county employees working the elections instead of citizen volunteers. This would mean the state controls our elections from the top ALL the way down to the bottom. Please call and respectfully voice your opinion on these bills. We strongly oppose these bills.
HB4140 Turner– Allows certain prisoners to be issued an absentee ballot while in jail. With all of the issues surrounding absentee ballots, why are we even considering sending ballots to prison for even less transparency?
SB1409 Brooks– Once again, provides driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, until we repeal the law entirely that allows multi state private agencies to maintain our voter registration rolls, we will be fighting this every single year. Regardless if the license is marked the information regarding citizenship cannot be transmitted by contract to ERIC, and allowing a valid form of state issued ID to illegal aliens would allow them to switch them out in other states that perhaps don’t have our requirement to mark the licenses, thereby giving them a way to come back and then turn in the cleaned ID for an Oklahoma clean ID. Think money laundering with personal identification.
Legislation We Are Missing, the rather large elephant in the room
We must outlaw machine counted ballots in Oklahoma and go back to hand counting votes in a manner that can be monitored and audited directly by the people. The machines, according to CISA and other cyber and computer experts, have been proven time and time again to be risks to our national security. Please don’t take our word for that. The National Academies of Science, just to name one organization, looked into the matter in 2018. Read that article here. CISA issued an advisory in 2022 in response to the now famous Halderman report you can access here from a case in Georgia brought in 2019. Why are we using black box machines to count votes? With these machines, ‘elections’ are an illusion.
With all of the attention on elections given the 2024 Presidential race, it is incumbent upon all of us, as citizens, to be informed on the legislation and the facts surrounding elections in Oklahoma. With an already potentially compromised election system and a lack of investigation by the appropriate officials, pushing for good election legislation and fighting bad legislation is imperative to hold the line until we can, once again, hand count our ballots with public witnesses and put in place a rigorous system of accountability with serious prison time for those who commit voter and/or election fraud. We must ensure, to the best of our ability, that the will of the people is what is being expressed at the ballot box and in the vote count.
Jenni White – 2.10.24
(Addendum – Per Julia Sublett, 2.12.24, “Charles Sublett does not work for Catalyst and [sic] not supporting any candidates”.)
Today I received a text message:
In case you can’t read the fine print circled in red:
I hope ANYONE who might have gotten this text had the first question that popped into their mind be simply, “Why?”.
That was mine. Why would a group called “Catalyst Oklahoma” want to send me a text to call Senator McCortney and tell him how much he means to me – even though he’s not even my Senator. I guess because I’ve been told he’s “conservative”, I should be honor-bound as a conservative to call him and thank him for all the “conservative” things he’s done for me?
For those who aren’t familiar with the “inside baseball” happening at the capitol right now, there is a 3-way race for leadership of the Senate this year. Current Pro-Temp, termed-out Senator Greg Treat, will be replaced by either Senators David Bullard, Casey Murdock, or Greg McCortney. Interesting timing on the text message rallying support around this particular, “conservative” in the Senate I would say.
McCortney earned a D from the Oklahoma 2A for 2022 . On the other hand, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce gave McCortney a 100% that same year. Which brings me to the next point.
During the 2022 elections, I wrote several articles about the use of “dark money” in Oklahoma elections. One article, dealt with Catalyst Oklahoma donations to Kristen Thompson, challenger to seated senator at the time, Jake Merrick. Thompson won that election.
So who/what is Catalyst Oklahoma? According to information I collected in 2022, Catalyst Oklahoma is a 501C4 (dark money) organization which included ties to both Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (through OCPA board member [according to the OCPA website as of 12.12.24] and President of Catalyst Oklahoma, Charles Sublett) and the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce (through Chamber board member Allen Wright and Director of Catalyst Oklahoma).
Quick points of interest:
Also of interest is the fact that Catalyst Oklahoma spent a total of $40,000 against Dusty Deevers – conservative Republican – in the District 32 (2023) special election for state senate (Oklahoma Ethics Guardian System Independent Expenditures search 2.10.24).
For conservatives, Catalyst Oklahoma suddenly sending out loving texts about Greg McCortney, should send you a message. If you get that message, please contact YOUR SENATOR and ask them to vote NO for McCortney as Pro-Temp on Monday.
While ROPE does not support candidates as a group, I can say that I’ve known David Bullard for several years and have found him to be (excepting a vote for our state’s educational voucher bill) very conservative, if you’re interested in an alternative.
PS: This little text messaging stunt is just another reason why we need to get
DARK MONEY OUT OF OKLAHOMA ASAP!
Guest Post By Ann Kerr
swoo͞p: v. 1. To make a rush or an attack with a sudden sweeping movement. 2. To seize or snatch in a sudden sweeping movement.
So long homeschooling parents! We don’t need you anymore. You do not know what is best for your kids, and we are going to tell you what is best. Until further notice, all of your children’s future will rest with the State. If you still want to try to direct their education and act as their parent – EVEN though the State knows best – then you can put in a request. We promise not to send it to File 13. We will look it over, look you over, look all of your children’s various teachers over and then we might look a little more deeply. We really want to get to know you before we would allow you to teach your own kids.
We want a file on you.
If this seems a little onerous…well…you know, you don’t really have to go through this. We have some other options already in place, and we will even pay you to use them. We have those old-fashioned brick and mortar learning centers (or the more recent version – [sheet metal and bolts), we have those more modern public (charter) schools that are not bound by local school boards, which many people believe are actually for homeschoolers, (eh, eh) and now we even have private schools under our wings. Our money is flooding their pockets – and you know what that means. (Or, at least you should.)
We want total control of your children. If you won’t give it to us, we will take it.
This is the power that is hoisted by House Bill 4130, filed by Representative Amanda Swope, Democrat, District 71.
Here are some of the tidbits in the Swoop.
Rep. Swope proposes that the government be required to compile a Database of individuals, facilities and organizations that perform or assist with homeschooling, pod schooling, or microschooling.
That’s you, homeschool parents.
Rep. Swope wants all of the information on you. Meanwhile, it will just sit in an encased, secure database preserved for posterity with your beautiful signature on it, or will it? If you learned your history, you will remember that more than one country has decided that its Uncle Sam or variation thereof is better enabled to raise children than the parents.
And, what has happened, as a result?
Children were cut off from families. Children were cut off from religious training. Parents were denied any rights to raise their children according to their values.
These results are hallmarks of a communist society.
As Karl Marx and Engel’s said in the Communist Manifesto –
Communists: “Abolition of the family! …
Citizens: But, …[communists] destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social [education].
Communists: “The…clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, … [is] all…disgusting…”
And, so is Rep. Swope’s swoop.
