Weekly News Headlines And Commentary – Week of March 3, 2025

Oh my gosh. Lots and lots and lots of news from last week!!! So many things going on to try and follow – including legislation!

ROPE2.org

Colonel Jim Putnam, Candidate for Edmond School Board – Virtual Presence Is Actual Absence

Colonel Jim Putnam is running for Edmond School Board. We interviewed him on the podcast, Wednesday, February 26th, and had such fun. That guy is smart and tough and tested and has the right idea about school boards – they control the school! I made a couple video clips from our interview which I hope everyone will share with people who live in the district. Edmond Public Schools would absolutely be a better place with Colonel Jim on the Board! Make sure you click on the link to see the videos. In one, he tells a story that is just hysterical. It’ll start your week off with a giggle.

Governor Stitt (R) Warns Trump Not To Dump Green Subsidies.

While I was researching something else this week, I accidentally came upon an interview that Governor Stitt had done with the online rag (I mean mag…LOL) POLITICO. Yes, POLITICO. I guess they wanted to talk to him because our Governor now sounds more like a Democrat than a Republican. The article was a mess, but even worse was the video interview he did with them. The interviewer was HORRIBLE and Governor Stitt honestly made a fool out of himself talking about the free market while giving tax subsidies and other handouts like candy. Links to the articles and the interview is in the piece – including a video I put together SHOWING that our governor literally loves green energy and has no clue what ‘free enterprise’ and ‘picking winners and losers’ means.

Guest Don Spencer, OK2A President Wows Us With Some History And 2A Legislation

Former Representative, Jason Murphy knows a lot about the legislature, having served there a full 12 year term. Today, he is making the most of that knowledge by writing a Substack called, “The Oklahoma State Capitol“. He joined Michael and I on the podcast last week to talk about how the legislative process – at least the way its been run in recent history – is simply a shell game to keep the citizenry appeased and the lobbyists/big business interests that run the state, happy. You’ll want to read the blog to see who all these interests are so you can keep your eye out for them.

Former SD15 Candidate Robert Keyes, His Fight For Election Integrity, The Evidence In His Case And SB654 To Remove The Election Law At The Center Of It All

Friday morning (2.28.25), we had President of OK2A, Don Spencer on to talk about gun bill legislation going through the capitol this session. It was a really great conversation – especially when he talked about the Oklahoma Constitution and why Don and his group are still having to work so hard on firearm legislation. See the article for video clips. We also talked to Michael’s brother Mark about the federal Department of Education employee who got busted by Project Veritas for admitting that they protected illegal aliens from ICE. Mark also talked a bit about when he was a professor.

Who’s Running The Show? Oklahoma Carbon Capture, Part 2

Those of you who read Part 1 in my Oklahoma Carbon Capture series might be interested in Part 2. In this segment, I outline the people who are ‘invested’ (for lack of a better word) in Oklahoma’s carbon capture plant – the biggest one in the US. I’m not sure it’s who you think it might be, but you might have pegged the fact that they are a group of elitists who care about making money off the backs of taxpayers while ‘saving the planet’. They could care less if you want to farm or have an unobstructed view of the prairie, you’re just the little people who don’t really know what you want any more than to be guided by their much smarter (and richer) hands. This is a good one to share with friends and family who still think we’re a red state.

LEGISLATION

Much legislation has been passed through Committees this session, with more coming up this week. The cell phone bill was the first bill passed off the floor, unsurprisingly, since the Governor and the House and Senate leadership all want this STUPID bill (Usurping Local Control – Cell Phone Restrictions In Oklahoma – NO on SB1389 and HB1276). That article goes over the many reasons this is such a BAD bill and why it needs to be voted down by the House and Senate both.

As usual, the two-tiered committee system in the House is making it very hard to see which bills are out of committee and going for the floor. The week of the 3rd is the last week for bills to be heard in committees. After that, all the bills will finish up their hearings on the floor of the Senate and the House. We’ll have a pause then, to take stock of the bills that have passed BOTH houses, so we can put our heads together and determine which bills must be stopped (or passed) in committee on the other side of the capitol. We’ll publish the list at that time so EVERYONE can keep them on their radar!

I have to say that I felt so much more informed when I was just following education legislation. Trying to keep up with bad bills in all the legislative sectors is making my head spin!

OKLAHOMA SUBSTACK AUTHORS

Don’t forget to check out our Substack authors this week!

The Oklahoma State Capitol by Jason Murphy

The Sooner Sentinel by Marven Goodman

V1SUT Vantage by ‘Mary’

LOCAL MEDIA

The biggest local news of the week was the TULSA PUBLIC SCHOOLS audit by our fabulous State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd. Here is the link to the actual 60-page audit. I suggest you at least scan it.

State audit finds culture of poor financial transparency at Tulsa Public Schools

Oklahoma Voice – We intend on having SAI Byrd on the ROPE Report Live podcast as soon as she’s able to talk to us in depth about this audit. There can’t be enough said about what a big deal it was. In fact, one of the biggest findings showed how the school board was left out of the administrative process altogether, while administrators created the school culture they wanted using lots of loopholes. It also shows the problem with public money being ‘given’ to private organizations which were used extensively at TPS. Now that the audit is through, we need to keep an eye on what happens next. If there are no arrests or prosecutions in this case, Oklahomans should throw up their hands in disgust and Tulsans should get a new DA as soon as possible. There is no reason for the SAI’s office to work this hard on an audit only to have the audit offenders in the same positions they were in BEFORE the audit. Prosecutions MUST be made for taxpayers, parents and the community to get any real relief.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Counties and Townships Authority to Zone, Permit, and Approve Certain Wind, Solar, and Other Green Energy Construction Projects

AG’s Office – This document is from the Oklahoma AG’s office. It’s a series of questions and answers about different types of local governments and what they can and can’t do so that citizens will know how to properly petition them for redress of local issues related to green energy projects.

Report shows $19.3M in Oklahoma’s private-school tax credits went to wealthier households

The Oklahoman – We’ve said it SO many times – the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit was going to be a boondoggle for Oklahoma taxpayers. It’s already caused private school tuition to go up – which we hypothesized it would – and now we find that nearly 25% of all the scholarships are going to people who can afford to send their own kids to private school if they really wanted to do so – families who made more than $250,000. Yes, Democrats are opposed to the voucher system because they claim it takes money away from public schools, but Conservatives like us rail against it because it violates the two biggest tenets of Conservatism – it grew government and it takes from one set of taxpayers to give to another. Only those people making over $250k are an actual tax credit – and even then, depending upon their income, they may have exceeded their tax credit and need a voucher for a second or third child’s tuition. Just a horrid plan. The legislature should quit giving public schools money carte blanche and make them actually perform to get paid. THAT would straighten them out, but our legislators are too chicken to even try the one thing that would make schools responsible to parents instantaneously.

Bixby superintendent Rob Miller announces run for state superintendent

News 9 – Back in the day, Rob Miller actually helped ROPE stop Common Core. We still have the video of Miller testifying before the House Common Ed Committee in November 2013 on our YouTube channel. Unfortunately, since that time, Miller has veered off the more conservative track. In fact, in Bixby, a group called Bixby Parents Voice has had to fight Miller’s leadership on a number of issues, including disgusting literature and parent comments at school board meetings. We’ll have to keep an eye on this situation and maybe even ask Miller to come on the podcast…

Could Oklahoma schools start offering free three-year-old pre-k?

KGOU – “House Bill 2395 by Rep. Brian Hill (R-Mustang) would amend existing law to allow schools to offer half-day or full-day pre-kindergarten for three-year-olds.” ABSOLUTELY NOT – UNDER NO CONDITIONS. Number one, schools are now going to have to possibly find day care teachers to change the diapers of toddlers in public school? Isn’t that what day care centers are for? If it’s to help parents who can’t afford day care, there are (of course) taxpayer subsidies to help with that. Secondly, it takes SMALL KIDS AWAY FROM PARENTS and makes the SCHOOL THEIR PARENT! We’re not going to get any closer to a world where we have happy families with children who can think for themselves if we’re going to allow government schools to start raising kids at younger and younger ages. NO NO NO NO NO!

Supreme Court sets date to hear whether Oklahoma can open publicly funded religious charter school

KOCO 5 News – The Supreme Court has set April 30th as the date when it will hear the case of St. Isadore Catholic school receiving taxpayer dollars as a private, religious charter school. This situation actually violates the Oklahoma Constitution, but apparently, in their desire to completely begin to fund ALL KINDS of religious schools with taxpayer funds, the state could care less. They’ve had to drag it to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will put the Supreme kibosh on this idea, because my God is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14) and I can’t imagine having to fund a Madrasa or a school of Satan via my tax dollars.

NATIONAL MEDIA

IMMIGRATION

I’m lumping several articles together here because I think they’re important as a group.

DHS will require migrants without legal status to register with U.S. government – Oklahoma Voice

Maine’s Schools Collapse as More Migrants Pour In – Breitbart

Hispanic Americans Eager for Bold Immigration Reform – The Washington Stand

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt Signs Illegal Immigration Bill Only To Open Door To VISA Taskforce

For those who may not remember, last week, Governor Stitt – angry over a State School Board agenda item to allow schools to simply count the number of illegal students – fired the three board members who voted for it and replaced them with three other picks. Please note the Breitbart article, which essentially says that Maine’s schools are collapsing under the weight of illegal students who can’t take tests in English but are required to, who can’t communicate with their teachers – which means they can’t learn anything – and who need so much remediation that Maine is having to spend more and more money just to keep their heads above water. No one is helped in this situation – not the students, the families, the schools or the taxpayers, but Governor Stitt simply wouldn’t entertain the notion that Oklahoma is having the same problem and needs to get a grip on the problem – the first start of which would be to see how many illegal students there are in the Oklahoma public education system.

This was more of a problem under the Biden administration because the Democrats were not only allowing illegal immigration, they were continually promoting it. Now, with Trump in office set on stopping the rolling tide of illegal immigrants to the US by creating policies like that of forcing illegals to register, it shouldn’t be rocket science to at least count the number of illegal students in order to try and help schools appropriately help non-English-speaking students.

According to the article in the Washington Stand, legal Hispanic citizens don’t want the effects of illegal immigration any more than any other citizens in this country legally. We had an entire podcast about that fact with two legal Oklahoma citizens of Hispanic origin. Why Governor Stitt had such a fit over this issue is a complete mystery – or is it? We’re investigating that now.

Examining a new method of estimating homeschool participation

Thomas Fordham Institute – Put under the category “scary”. Why it is that so many people feel as though they need to know exactly how many families are doing the most normal thing in the world – educating their own children just like their forefathers did? But then again, it scares authoritarians when they can’t make everyone do what they want, so I guess it’s not so shocking. I would just suggest that no one needs to know how many homeschoolers are out there for any reason at all and leave it at that.

Apple Rejects Attempts To Protect Children From Online Sex Abuse, Repeal Harmful DEI Policies

The Federalist – Alliance Defending Freedom worked to introduce resolutions at Apple’s shareholder meeting that would protect children from online sexual abuse and remove DEI programming and all four were voted down. I know so many people just can’t live without their I-whatever, but this is truly bad news and should make Apple owners think twice.

Poll: Rate of People Who Identify as LGBTQ at Record High

The Washington Stand – “Gallup chalked up the trend to an uptick in younger, liberal women identifying as bisexual during the years of the Biden administration.” In the last two years of the Biden administration alone there was a sharp increase, with the percent of Gen Z that identified as LGBT going “from an average of 18.8% of Gen Z adults in 2020 through 2022 to an average of 22.7% from 2022 to 2024.” Yet another concerning trend.

March 3, 2025 0

Former SD15 Candidate Robert Keyes, His Fight For Election Integrity, The Evidence In His Case And SB654 To Remove The Election Law At The Center Of It All

Robert Keyes fights for Oklahoma election integrity

On Valentine’s Day, former SD15 candidate, Robert Keyes caught us up on his fight for election transparency in Oklahoma. It was a very interesting podcast and you can find the full live version on our YouTube and Rumble channels.

Robert ran for Senate against Lisa Standridge, the wife of previous office holder, Rob Standridge, who had termed out of office.

It is Keyes’ contention – which has not been proven wrong – that Lisa Standridge’s campaign manager broke Oklahoma election law by notarizing and collecting absentee ballots – something neither members of a campaign or the candidate can do according to existing state law.

Keyes lost by 51 votes and following the close of the election, his team of attorneys were able to document 41 instances of election irregularities – fifty-one of which would overturn the results. Robert recounts that the State Election Board (SEB) was not only not helpful in helping him get to the bottom of these irregularities, they actually blocked him from discovering information.

After the irregularities were discovered and documented – including the little nugget below

– Keyes and his attorneys came to an agreement with the Standridge’s attorneys and the SEB at a closed meeting that would allow the SEB to certify the election for Standridge while insuring Keyes that – among other points – the irregularities would be investigated. Unfortunately, when it was time to implement the agreement – both parties refused to uphold the agreement as promised to Keyes.

Dissatisfied with the outcome, Keyes – court reported documents from the meeting in hand – took both the SEB and the Standridge’s to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Supreme Court punted the case to Cleveland County Justice Jeff Virgin, who refused to make a ruling.

As an aside, the Honorable Judge Virgin is the son of longtime Norman attorney Blake Virgin, and the brother of Emily Virgin, formerly serving as a Democrat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

Hopefully, you’re scratching your head in wonder at why NO ONE in the commission of justice in central Oklahoma wants to attempt to UPHOLD JUSTICE and if you’re not, you should be. This situation should create actual fear in the citizenry of Oklahoma that Democracy in a state where all 77 counties voted for Trump – is dead.

Below is the Keyes case before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Scroll through it and you will see the MANY, MANY examples of irregularities in Keyes’ election. This isn’t a complaint without merit from Keyes. There is substantial information here to suggest that our state’s election process is marred – and possibly improper – as I alleged during the time I was an alternate Oklahoma County Election Board member.

This is a short video of Mr. Keyes talking about the frustration he has surrounding this election – the number of irregularities that were found and the lack of ANY justice official willing to investigate the findings. In fact, he says that one of the most frustrating thing about his entire election has been that he believes there are bigger problems with the SEB than just one election.

Another very unfortunate and frustrating issue adjacent to this case, is the fact that Senate Pro Temp Lonnie Paxton – who narrowly won election to the Pro Temp post over challenger David Bullard – has authored SB654, which removes the 2 sections of law allegedly broken by Standridge’s campaign. While I’m all for repealing laws, these two pieces of Oklahoma election law SHOULD NOT BE REMOVED and, to me, it’s actually quite suspicious that this bill was authored in the first place after a close campaign with irregularities in which both the SEB and Standridges refused to uphold an agreed upon resolution.

This entire case should be concerning to every Oklahoma interested in election integrity in Oklahoma. We’ll continue to follow this case and bring you updates, however, we ask that you share this information with your friends – no matter WHAT political affiliation they may be – because without elections we can trust, we have very little by which to call ourselves Americans – let alone Oklahomans.

ADDENDUM: I think it might be important to note here that in 2008, Glenn Coffee – a long-time Oklahoma attorney – was Senate Co-Pro Temp. He appointed Paul Ziriax as Secretary of the State Election Board and Secretary of the Senate. Coffee was followed by Pro Temp Brian Bingman who continued Ziriax’ appointment. Bingman was followed by Pro Temp Greg Treat who also continued Ziriax’ appointment. Treat was followed by Pro Temp Lonnie Paxton, who also continued Ziriax’ appointment.

It is also interesting to note that Glenn Coffee has been hired to be the ‘Senior Legal Consultant’ to the Senate Republican Caucus this year by Ryan Overholt, the Senate’s Chief of Staff. Coffee, who made millions of dollars on the state’s opioid lawsuit, has left a thriving law practice to come to work for the Oklahoma Senate for $12,500 per month for 12 months. This seems like a step down, which prompts a number of questions.

Senate Leader Chooses Paul Ziriax for Dual Post in Senate/Election Board

November 20, 2008 | 12:32am

Senate President Pro Tempore Designate Glenn Coffee has announced his choice for Secretary of the Senate and State Election Board Secretary. Paul Ziriax, who has held the title of Leadership Assistant at the State Senate for the past six years, has been named to the dual posts.

The Pro Tempore selects the Secretary of the Senate, who must then be elected by a majority of members. Under Oklahoma law that individual also serves as State Election Board Secretary.

“Paul’s experience in both state and national government positions have prepared him well for these new responsibilities,” Coffee said. “I also know him to be a man of tremendous character and intellect, with an abiding respect for the political process and democracy. I know he will do an outstanding job on behalf of the people of Oklahoma.”

“Oklahoma has a national reputation for the efficient way in which our elections are conducted, and Michael Clingman should be commended for the great job he’s done as Secretary of the Senate and Secretary of the State Election Board,” stated Coffee. “I wish Michael the best of luck in his new role as director of the Office of State Finance.”

Before coming to work for the Senate, Ziriax was the Chief of staff and press secretary to former U.S. Congressman Wes Watkins. He serves on the State Capitol Preservation Commission and is a member of the Legislative Information and Communication Staff Section and Leadership Staff Section of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ziriax earned a degree in Business Administration and Finance from Oklahoma State University, and is a member of the OSU Alumni Association.

The Secretary of the Senate directs the floor staff and oversees the preparation of daily printing and general publications and the content of forms used by the Senate for various reports and procedures. The Secretary is the custodian of all Senate records and provides assistance to the President Pro Tempore and the presiding officer. The State Election Board Secretary is the chief administrative officer of the State Election Board.

“I am deeply honored by the faith Senator Coffee has placed in me,” Ziriax said. “I have some big shoes to fill. I am thrilled with this new opportunity, and look forward to continuing my public service.”

Ziriax, age 37, is a native of Claremore, Oklahoma, but currently resides in Edmond with his wife, Lisa, and their nearly 2-year-old daughter, Allie. They are members of Faith Bible Church in Edmond.

The full Senate will vote on Ziriax’s appointment when they return for an organizational day on January 6, 2009.

Contact info

Senator Coffee’s Office: (405) 521-5636

February 18, 2025 0

Oklahoma Election Irregularities: Keyes’ Eye-Opening Findings

The full LIVE podcast is available on Rumble and on YouTube.

Wednesday, November 6th – the day after Trump’s historic, too-big-to-cheat win over an installed, unelected, Marxist shill – the guest on our podcast was Robert Keyes, former candidate for SD15.

Keyes lost his election to fellow Republican and pharmacist wife of former termed-out attorney Senator, Rob Standridge by 51 votes.

After being alerted to anomalies in the election, Keyes thought to file a complaint with the State Election Board (SEB) for a recount, but realized a simple recount would do little more than echo the report of the SEB, so he dug a bit deeper and found that he could file an Application For Irregularities.

Keyes found this a very difficult process – so difficult in fact, that he called in a team of attorneys. Here he explains a few of the anomalies his team found during their search, including 51 votes logged in the Voter Warehouse database that weren’t counted in the final SEB total.

But that wasn’t the only problem Keyes found. Like me, he found that the SEB followed their own rules and regulations – not Oklahoma’s election law found in Title 26.

Truly, the Oklahoma State Election Board must be reformed ASAP, before another election goes by.

Please, after reviewing the full video, contact your legislator and ask them to review it as well and respond to you about whether or not our State Election Board is providing citizens the transparent elections to which they are entitled!

November 10, 2024 2

ROPE Report Live OK Voter Roll Re-Register Debate – Who Won?

Sorry to disappoint – that was a click-bait title (LOL) – but no one ‘won’ the debate. In fact, it was one of the best discussions we’ve had on the ROPE Report.

Chairman of the Libertarian Party and Bethany City Council Board Member, Chris Powell, joined our friends Amber Evans and Wendi Montgomery Dial (OK State Director of Restore Liberty) to talk about whether or not voter rolls in Oklahoma need to be archived and all voters re-registered. We gave each of the three 5 minutes in a round robin to talk about why – or why not – the voter rolls should be re-registered.

You can find the entire live broadcast on our YouTube and Rumble channels, but below is a wrap-up of the pro-position by Wendi.

In the video, Wendi references a candidate challenge – of which Chris was a part, because the candidate was a Libertarian – adjudicated by the Oklahoma State Election Board during candidate filing earlier this year. Amber, Wendi, Michael and I talked specifically about this issue in our ROPE Report LIVE from April 26th of this year, starting at about 31 minutes in. It’s well worth the watch if you’re so inclined – very interesting information.

Below, Michael and I talk about our specific experiences with the voter rolls in Oklahoma County. Michael from a candidate’s perspective during his run for Edmond School Board, and me from the time the Town of Luther (where I was Mayor for a term) decided to send out letters to ALL prospective voters, alerting them to the date of an upcoming vote to increase the sales tax. Unfortunately, both of us had the same experience with the voter lists we received.

Michael got a list of the voters in his district to knock doors and send literature, and I got a list of voters in my district to send letters to, from the Oklahoma County Election Board (OCEB). Michael had loads of voters on his ‘walk’ list that door knockers found to be not living at the addresses identified by the OCEB and I had a stack of about a quarter of the total letters I sent returned to me because of wrong addresses.

It makes sense that a candidate with nefarious purpose, might be able to ‘test’ a list by sending out mailers to everyone on the list given him/her by their county election board. They could then check addresses returned to make sure people don’t live at the listed address, wait until election time, apply for an absentee ballot with that person’s information and vote like the person is still on the rolls at that address. In this way, people could illegally vote absentee – and how would they be caught doing so?

From my time on the Oklahoma County Election Board (OCEB), I can tell you that there would be no way for ballot counters to have any idea if the person voting absentee lived at the address listed on the envelope – absentee ballots are notarized to signify that the voter is who he/she says they are – but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that anyone can apply to be a notary.

At the OCEB in 2023 when I was a Board member, the way absentee ballots were processed, we never even knew if there were notaries notarizing more than the lawful maximum of 20. The ballots were never laid out in piles per notary, they were simply checked to make sure all lawful information was present on the envelope and removed to another room for removal of the envelope.

Many of the elections in Edmond (Ronda Peterson, Michael Grande, Margaret Best – to name a few) that I’ve followed have had Republican candidates win at the ballot box, but then lose the race by a few absentee ballots. It certainly seems plausible and one reason Oklahoma needs to clean up our voter rolls.

Because I didn’t make a video clip of Chris’ perspective, I asked him to send me some of his suggestions for making sure Oklahoma’s voter rolls are as clean as possible. Here’s what he sent:

Some of the things I would change are things we didn’t get into. I’d get rid of partisan registration (and so also straight party voting) and in fact I’d favor doing away with partisan primaries altogether. But that’s probably a different show that could also talk about open primaries, Top-Two jungle primaries, ranked-choice voting, election calendar reform, and that kind of stuff.

To be specific to the voter roll, I think it’d be really easy to add a question of “has your address changed?’ when voters sign the book at the polling place on Election Day and get that new address. I’d also like to see an interstate voter roll integrity organization, but I’d like it to be limited to providing information for states to use as they see fit rather than dictating either to include or exclude voters. But a major point that Wendi and I alluded to but didn’t really state straight out is that the voter rolls are always going to be heavily dependent upon the actions of individual voters. All the laws in the world only work as well as people choosing to comply and if things are made too cumbersome it fuels the argument for a more wide-open system which is something I’m sure many people don’t want.

Wendi also sent me a follow-up with her ideas:

SHOW PHOTO ID when reregistering.
Reregister over 2 years and then archive the old rolls.
Issue the State Election Board funds to advertise the reregistration, including mailers, commercials on local tv and radio networks.
Allow provisional ballots at the polls for the first presidential election after the reregistration deadline for those who still wish to vote but missed the above advertising.
Have special nursing home teams to get out and reregister the elderly and infirmed.

And here are Amber’s:

Election laws should be changed so that registered voters & candidates – through canvassing – can report voters not living at the address for which they are registered. The State Election Board should then go through the appropriate steps to verify the findings and remove the voter from the rolls once verified.

The voter rolls need to be cleaned more often, and the State Election Board needs to look at the rolls and go through the proper process to get correct lawfully physical addresses for voters on the rolls and remove any addresses violating O.S.26

After reading the blog and watching the videos, take some time to have a discussion with your duly elected Representative and Senator about this issue – even forward them this article. As Wendi pointed out so well in her closing, clean voter rolls containing only lawful entries are of upmost importance to – not only the security of Oklahoma elections – but the electoral process itself.

June 12, 2024 0

Election Integrity Bills That Need Our Attention (as of 2.11.24)

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.

Wendi Montgomery Dial – Election Integrity Bills To Watch in Oklahoma

by Wendi Montgomery Dial, Oklahoma State Director of Restore Liberty

This is an editorial piece analyzing various pieces of election legislation that have been filed for the 2024 Legislative Session.

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.

February 11, 2024 0

Dark Money – Elections and Ethics Dark Money Interim Study

This is the video from the Oklahoma House of Representatives website recorded during the Interim Study on Dark Money held by the Elections and Ethics Committee at the Oklahoma State Capitol, 9/7/22.

Only the Chair, Representative Jim Olsen and the Vice-Chair, Representative Max Wolfley were in attendance for the presentation. In addition, Ethics Director Ashley Kemp left before my presentation and was not available to answer any of the questions asked in my presentation.

Please, if you have questions after watching the video above (or the full video of my presentation to the Tulsa 912) contact the members of the Elections and Ethics Committee listed below and tell them so. We must let our legislators know that the practices outlined in the video are not ok with Oklahomans and changes must be made. Transparency in elections is paramount to the continuation of our Republic.

Jim.Olsen@okhouse.gov, Max.Wolfley@okhouse.gov, Merleyn.Bell@okhouse.gov, Cyndi.Munson@okhouse.gov, Jim.Grego@okhouse.gov, David.Smith@okhouse.gov, Anthony.Moore@okhouse.gov, Rande.Worthen@okhouse.gov

Here is the link the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. Here is the link to their staff page and here is the link to the Ethics Commissioners.

Please send this link and any others on this website to friends and educate them about what is going on in Oklahoma elections and who’s behind the over 5 million dollars spent on Independent Expenditures in Oklahoma over the primary and run-off elections so far this year (22).

September 16, 2022 0

Tag

election integrity