Elections

ASAP ACTION ITEM: Oklahoma Republicans Stopping School Board, Ranked Choice Voting and Medical Freedom Bills!!

ASAP ACTION ITEM: Oklahoma Republicans Stopping School Board, Ranked Choice Voting and Medical Freedom Bills!! DEADLINE FOR BILLS TO BE HEARD IS THURSDAY, 3/14/24!

PLEASE WATCH AND SHARE: Republicans are blocking HB3563 moving school board elections to November.

Medical lobbyists are contacting legislators wanting to stop the panel on Medical Freedom being held March 26th at the Capitol in room 112.2. In addition, they don’t want the Kevin West bill supported by this study – HB3214, the Medical Ethics Defense Act – heard.

House bills preventing Ranked Choice Voting are also being denied a hearing – particularly HB3156 and HJR1048. (See our video about Ranked Choice Voting HERE)

Please IMMEDIATELY call your Representative and tell them that you – as a constituent, not a lobbyist – want these bills to get a hearing before the House.

If you don’t know their number, dial the general number here and ask for their office: (405) 521-2711

March 13, 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

Observations From An Alternate Oklahoma County Election Board Member Regarding Oklahoma County Election Procedure

Jenni White

May 2023, the Chairman of Oklahoma County Republican Party (Ken Warner) had the opportunity to appoint a Republican member (Cheryl Williams) and alternate member (me) to the Oklahoma County Election Board. Since that time, both Cheryl and I have relayed questions to both Warner and Election Board officials regarding OK CO Election Board procedure.

Since September 6th, when Cheryl and I attended a mandatory Election Board meeting, I’ve had various questions that – both Cheryl and I – have asked election officials and legislators without getting answers to solve the issues as I’d hoped.

December 11th, 2023, Governor Stitt signed an Executive Order (2023-29) creating the Task Force on Campaign Finance and Election Threats which is authorized until March 31st, 2024. While I am grateful and hopeful for government oversight into these matters, I also believe that the public should be aware of my observations (and suggestions) for the Oklahoma County Election Board as well as those I’ve previously published regarding Dark Money (campaign finance). What follows is a description of several issues I’ve witnessed over the course of my time participating as an Oklahoma County Election Board alternate.

Friday, December 15^th, 2023, Cheryl Williams (Vice-Chairman) of the 3-person Oklahoma County Election Board (comprised of a Republican, a Democrat – Chairman, David Glover – and the Secretary of the Oklahoma County Election Board, Doug Sanderson) voted against certification of the December 12^th election which would choose a general election candidate to replace Ryan Martinez, the House Representative for district 39, and a sales tax to build a sports arena in downtown Oklahoma City.

At issue is the prescription of Oklahoma Administrative Code (OAC) and Oklahoma law, versus OK CO Election Board procedure as outlined in these observations.

According to State Law (26-14-125) absentee ballots must be counted on the day of election (OAC 230:30-19-3).

26-14-125 C. 1. Says that, “Upon written approval by the Secretary of the State Election Board, the county election board may begin the process of counting absentee ballots as described in this section on a date earlier than the day of the election.”

Absentee ballot counting began Monday, December 11^th. Neither Glover nor Williams were presented with evidence of authorization for early counting at that time. After Williams directed an email to OK State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax after the meeting questioning this issue, a letter from Ziriax to OK CO Election Board Secretary, Doug Sanderson, dated December 12^th, was provided to Williams and Glover Friday, December 15^th.

This letter indicated that Ziriax had received a letter dated 10-25-23 from Sanderson requesting an earlier counting date for the December 12^th election, but that letter had contained a typographical error resulting in lack of approval for absentee ballot counting on the 11^th.

Ziriax’ letter to Sanderson contained an amended authorization for the 11^th, as “the best resolution for ensuring a proper count of absentee ballots received in Oklahoma County and so that the transfer cases containing those ballots are not disturbed.”

According to OAC 230:30-19-4, Procedure for counting absentee ballots on election day, 230:30-19-4 (5), “The Secretary shall assign an employee of the County Election Board to each voting device or high-speed scanner to be used to count the absentee ballots. The County Election Board Chairman and Vice Chairman shall be present and shall observe the counting process.”

Neither Glover nor Cheryl were able to observe any of the counting process in person. Both members were confined to a public room the entire time absentee ballots were being handled and counted and were required to watch the entire procedure on a closed-circuit television also made available for any members of the public attending the meeting.

The only member of the 3-person OK CO Election Board present in the room to observe all absentee ballot processing and counting procedure was Secretary Sanderson. Unfortunately, many times Sanderson was out of range of the CCTV handling absentee ballots, making direct observation by Glover, Williams and the public impossible. In fact, neither Williams or Glover were able to see the absentee ballot ‘box’ (a large rollaway garbage can with 3 locks on it – 1 kept by Glover, 1 kept by Cheryl and 1 kept by Sanderson) being opened, nor the ballots being counted.

Glover and Williams were allowed to examine absentee affidavit ballot envelopes (12.11.23). These were brought into them by OK CO Election Board staff and split between Glover and Williams. Both checked the affidavits for the ballots in each of their piles, but there was no cross-check performed.

OAC 230:30-11-3 says, “If the County Election Board meets prior to election day to open outer envelopes as outlined in 230:30-11-2 [revoked](?), it is permissible for the Board members also to open and remove affidavit envelopes that are determined to be executed properly. Upon removing the affidavits, the Board members shall place the ballot envelopes in a ballot box of the type described in 230:30-7-8(b) and shall lock the box…. Additionally, the Board members shall affix a long, white State Election Board seal across the opening on the top of the box so that the opening is entirely obstructed. The County Election Board members each shall sign and date the seal. Each member of the County Election Board shall retain the key to only one of the locks on the ballot box. The Secretary shall store the ballot box in a secure place until it is time to count absentee ballots on election day.”

According to OAC 230:-19-4 (10), the employee operating the voting (counting) device is to put the [absentee] ballots in a transfer case and that case is to be sealed with a State Election Board seal [tape] to be signed by the person who operated the voting device and all County Election Board members.

These seals [tapes] were brought into the room with Glover and Williams for their signature, however, neither member saw either the box, or the contents of the box – just the seal [tape].

Election Monday (12.11.23), I emailed a formal complaint to the State Election Board, explaining the procedure I had witnessed that Monday and what I had observed during the Jones school bond election held the previous November 14^th. I also asked Secretary Ziriax to direct a member of the Oklahoma State Election Board to observe the next two meetings of the OK CO Election Board due to the concerns detailed in my complaint. Unfortunately, no State Board Member was present for either the 12.12 or 12.15 OK CO Election Board meetings as requested.

According to OAC 230:35-3-84, “The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the County Election Board, the Secretary or employees of the Board may be involved in reception of voting devices, election supplies, and ballot transfer cases from Inspectors.”

OAC 230:35-3-91 (a) says, “On election night, the County Election Board shall canvas the precinct and absentee results for all elections including elections for which the county is an affected county.”

During the Jones election, neither Glover nor Williams were able to leave the “public” room to witness – or receive – any of the incoming precinct materials. Neither were they allowed to witness, or review (canvas) any of the election materials during or after processing by Oklahoma County Election Board staff.

Tuesday morning (10:10am), December 12^th, Cheryl Williams had car trouble so I sat on the Board as the member. Glover and I were asked to “accept and process” 32 absentee ballots. Both Glover and I were able to check the affidavits on the outer envelopes, but the ballots were removed from us to the counting room after that.

I requested that we be allowed to witness the counting of the absentee ballots as described by OAC 230:30-11-3 and was denied by Sanderson and Deputy Secretary Tuesday Sanders. I refused to sign the seal [tape] for the box with the absentee ballots when it was presented to me for my signature because I wasn’t allowed to observe the counting of the ballots or see the ballots being placed in the box. At one point, I even asked the Sheriff’s Deputy in the room to ask Secretary Sanderson to follow the law and was told, “I’m only an observer”. Consequently, I abstained from the vote to “accept and process thirty-two (32) absentee ballots”. It makes no sense that I should sign something saying I’ve seen something when I absolutely had not.

Secretary Sanderson takes the minutes of the meeting. Unfortunately, none of my concerns were noted in the minutes of the December 12^th meeting, nor was there an auditory recording of the meeting made by the OK CO Election Board.

Tuesday evening (6:47pm), the Election Board assembled to canvas the ballots for that day’s elections. I stayed on the Board again that evening for Cheryl. At 7:36pm the meeting was recessed, and Deputy Sanders took Glover and I on a tour of the building to witness election night procedure. Sanders answered numerous questions I had and was extremely pleasant. The tour was very helpful in understanding the process. The meeting was then called back to order at 8:06pm.

At this time, Glover and I were allowed to observe the election machine tapes from each precinct involved in each election – something I had asked to do after the Jones elections where neither Glover nor Cheryl were given any evidence of the election other than the absentee affidavits. David and I spot-checked tapes for accuracy – which was 100% – and I checked the tapes against the precinct list provided by Deputy Sanders.

I found that 10 precincts had 2 tapes (not all of which were spot-checked for accuracy) so I alerted Deputy Sanders who said that she would have to wait until all tapes had been numerically assembled at the end of the night to investigate this issue. I also had no record of a tape for 1 precinct in the Edmond HD39 election. (Friday, December 15^th, Sanders informed me that she could not find two tapes for any precinct and that another tape included in the results for which there was no precinct, was indeed a ‘training’ tape that had been mistakenly included by the precinct officials. This information was also not included in the meeting minutes of the 12^th.)

Cheryl was in her seat on the OK CO Election Board Friday night, December 15^th when the results from the December 12^th elections were to be certified. Because of the concerns enumerated above, Williams voted “no” to certify results and refused to sign any paperwork regarding election certification.

At this point in time Cheryl and I are asking for the following concerns to be addressed by state lawmakers and the OK CO Election Board:

Oklahoma Administrative Code and Oklahoma Law both refer to the “Oklahoma County Election Board” often as both the office and the 3-member board. This is very confusing and needs to be made more specific in both law and code. Those hired by the Oklahoma County Election Board to help administrate an election have different duties than those appointed to the 3-person Oklahoma County Election Board and these duties should be specifically identified in both law and code.
The 3-member Election Board needs to become a 5 or 7-member board for several reasons:
- If two Board members are together in the room, it constitutes a meeting according to the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act (25:304.2). This fact has been used to dampen transparency in several meetings I’ve attended as Secretary Sanderson has refused to answer public questions either during the meeting or after the meeting has been adjourned citing this particular issue.
- It takes only two Board members to certify an election and one is the Secretary of the OK CO Election Board. If one party has questions or concerns, those are negated by the Secretary and the other party’s appointee. This can also dampen transparency and lead to concerns of partisanship in elections. Adding voters of other parties, such as Independent voters, by random drawing of interested voters could stimulate transparency by putting more eyes on the process.
The Secretary of the OK CO Election Board is a voting member of the Board but should be relegated to a position of information for the Board and not a voting member for the reason listed in 2b.
There should be a meeting Secretary assigned to meetings of the Board and the meetings should be recorded via audio.
- Secretary Sanderson conducts the meeting, writes the minutes of the meeting and performs his duties as Secretary during elections.
- Minutes of the meetings are often incomplete as mentioned above. Transparency hinges not only on proper procedure, but accurate and effective communication with the public.
The OK CO Election Board must follow the law as it is written in Title 25 of the Oklahoma Statutes and Title 230 of the Oklahoma Administrative Code. Neither Cheryl nor I believe that the OK CO Election Board is following the OAC regarding Absentee voting.

I know that Cheryl and I are both willing to work with the OK CO Election Board in whatever way necessary to perform our Board duties, but are united together in the requirement that the OK CO Election Board be transparent in their actions and follow all pertinent State Law and Oklahoma Administrative Code in the performance of their required duties.

January 7, 2024 2

HD39 ‘Push’ Poll Libels Candidate Peterson By Messaging Voters, Claiming That She’d Been Fired

In the now on-going saga of candidate Ronda Peterson running for a seat in HD39, I received a text message after yesterday’s article publication from Peterson, who sent me a screenshot of a candidate ‘push’ poll she received from a friend dated November 27th.

Here are a couple screenshots Peterson took of the poll.

NOTE: This text says “Ronda Peterson WAS removed…” from her position, but it does NOT SAY from what school system she was fired. This kind of a poll hopes to trap uneducated voters into NOT paying attention to the fact that the name of the school from which Ronda was presumably fired IS NOT LISTED, hoping that readers will tend to believe it’s the school where she is currently employed. As the Ballotpedia definition for push polling points out, this is VERY, VERY bad stuff.

Here’s why:

Yup, not only did someone BELIEVE the lie in the push poll, that person in turn SPREAD THE LIE on her Facebook page (and most probably other places) to influence other people about her candidacy.

Ronda asked Edmond Public Schools Administration to make a public statement – not on her behalf as a candidate – but about her employment status. Though Peterson has been employed with Edmond Public Schools for 22 years, she was refused on grounds that EPS policy prevents them from commenting on an employee’s employment status.

She also tried to expose the lie of the poll by taking a picture of herself on her bus with a paper showing the current date – which she posted to her Facebook page – but that was about all she could do to tamp down the nonsense.

So…is push polling legal? What about the fact that it libeled Peterson?

Yes, push polling is legal, and many people use it in political campaigns to try and ‘push’ their candidate – and not just political consultants. In fact, ANYONE could do a push poll, so where this particular libelous push poll came from is a complete mystery without some kind of lead back to the company from which it was generated. The phone number used for this poll has a DC area code and is probably Google in origin – there’s no way to tell without paying a reverse look-up service and even then the odds aren’t great of actually determining anything. The “State Election Research” title comes up in no internet search I performed, so it’s likely just a phrase used as an appeal to authority – again, to influence unsuspecting voters.

Libel on the other hand is illegal – but only if it can be proved in a court of law. Here’s the problem, more than likely it can’t and the legal process to try and prove it is quite expensive.

So what happens to candidates like Peterson who find themselves stuck at the end of this form of campaigning? Nothing. Bupkis. Nada. Zilch. You get the idea.

This gross practice needs to be exposed so voters who want to know what’s going on with the text messages they get – usually unwanted – on their cell phones, can be assured that their spidey senses are right – it’s a practice to try to trick them, not inform them.

But then, this is why I try to expose Dark Money where and when I can. It gives unfair advantage to whomever uses it for their election, by funneling tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of dollars into local races. This kind of money makes it nearly impossible for people who really want to run to help their community but have little means to mount a 100 thousand dollar political campaign, to run and become elected. The Founders of this country envisioned ‘citizen legislators‘ making decisions for the betterment of their states and their country, not people backed by large amounts of cash coming in from outside the district to seat a candidate whose interests then don’t really lie in the district to which he/she was elected.

Unfortunately, today, a large portion of Oklahomans don’t vote – in fact, in 2020, just over half of eligible voters actually voted Oklahoma’s elections – and of those half who do, few take time to really research candidates or issues. Often, these voters get their information from a push poll, a mailer, or an electronic ad and political consultants know that – it makes their job easy.

Consequently, if interested Oklahomans are going to ever see real change in Oklahoma’s elections, PEOPLE IN OKLAHOMA NOT ONLY HAVE TO VOTE – BUT BE INFORMED VOTERS.

December 6, 2023 1

School Board Elections Are Coming UP! Be PREPARED With This Information!

For years, ROPE has been preaching about the importance of SCHOOL BOARD RACES to parents and students. Although many people don’t realize it, SCHOOL BOARDS have nearly ALL THE POWER in a school! NOT the superintendent – THE BOARD – which should be IDEALLY made up of parents with children in the school.

If you are interested in running for school board, you must RUN to your county election board ASAP. The date for filing for running STARTS TOMORROW – December 5-7th! Go to your COUNTY Election Board to file. Please see THIS LINK for the filing packet and all information regarding School Board Elections.

Here’s a table that gives you information on WHAT a School Board member should do – as opposed to what the Superintendent should do.

Here’s a link to Title 70 Section 70-3-104, “State Board of Education – Powers and duties” in the event you’d like to see for yourself.

In the event that you would like to have a candidate forum in your area – or simply ask questions of your school board candidates, we’ve developed the 20 below for your use!

20 QUESTIONS FOR SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES

Do you know how to tell male from female in most species of mammals in North America? Should an educator be required to reach that level of competency?
What are the pros and cons of A-B schedules?
Should your Superintendent have the wisdom to fire teachers who provide litter boxes or sexual instruction for children?
How many administrators does it take to provide programs that have nothing to do with education?
How many federal grants does it take to prevent the need for parents?
Are you opposed to parents taking the main role in raising their children (education, food, transportation, and entertainment, physical and mental health care, sex ed, spiritual guidance)?
At what age is it educational for a teacher or librarian to offer your child pornography?
Do you trust trained teachers to carry a firearm in class to protect themselves and their students?
Will you have concerned parents arrested for attending school board meetings?
Do you want to take your school board training from a “non-profit” who makes $Millions per year and considers concerned parents domestic terrorists?
Are you for or against adults having sex with minors?
Should school counselors be allowed to advise children to keep secrets from parents, or encourage them to have sex or to have medical procedures?
Who do school board members work for?
Should children be masked and treated like lepers when .005% of them get sick? Should schools close down for those statistics?
What are the pros and cons of virtual schools?
Should parents be allowed entry to see their children or faculty during the school day?
Are you familiar with Social Emotional Learning, Critical Race Theory, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, as well as Environmental Social Governance programs and their application in the classroom?
Should schools follow the spirit of a law even if they can find a loophole?
What challenges do you expect as a member of your school board?
Do you have the guts to stand strong against absurdity to protect Oklahoma children even when the globalists offer you or your school money?

Now that you have a big chunk of information to help you either RUN or VOTE for your local school board candidate – GET OUT THERE AND GET INVOLVED!!!

December 5, 2022 1

HELP! For Which Judges Should I Vote?

Several judges are up for election on November 8th. Often, people simply vote to retain or don’t vote because they don’t know how to get information to cast an INFORMED vote for judges on the ballot in Oklahoma.

Fortunately several Oklahoma bloggers have compiled some really great information on Oklahoma judges, so I refuse to re-invent the wheel.

Michael Bates of Batesline has very interesting information on judges. I’ve taken a screenshot of the upshot of his blog in the event you’re feeling lazy and don’t want to read the whole blog. (PLEASE DO, HOWEVER. WE NEED TO SUPPORT OKLAHOMA RESEARCHERS AND BLOGGERS!)

Another Oklahoma blogger, Jamison Faught of Muskogee Politico has released not one, but TWO blogs on the topic. Again, I’ve screenshotted his picks, but again, PLEASE VISIT HIS BLOGS.

The one thing I appreciated Michael bringing into the mix is Judge Barbara Swinton’s term on the Seeworth Academy Board during the time that their superintendent was embezzling taxpayer funds. I cannot vote for this woman specifically for that reason.

Now, if you simply can’t take anyone’s word for anything, check out this great website – Courtfacts.org. They have a comprehensive listing of Oklahoma judges on the ballot and information about their backgrounds. This is another source from which you can become more educated, but you can also go to Ballotpedia.org and look at the (bare minimal) information they have on Oklahoma judges.

PLEASE, these positions are much too important to leave blank. READ UP ON THESE JUDGES AND VOTE, NOVEMBER 8th!

November 1, 2022 0

Part 1: Jake Merrick Supported, Then Worked Against By Oklahoma Council For Public Affairs (OCPA) Dark Money Groups

Jake Merrick won a special election for now-Congresswoman Stephanie Bice’s open Senate seat last year. Senator Merrick is a Conservative, pro-life, pro-2nd amendment, small business owner who has served Oklahoma well since his special election. Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (OCPA) dark money helped him in his first election. Here’s the rub: After voting YES in committee, he voted NO (on the Senate floor) on a bill to send public money to private schools (voucher – SB1647). This election cycle, OCPA is using many thousands of dollars to influence voters AGAINST HIM through a different dark money group.

What is “dark money”? Dark money is money spent on political campaigns where – since 2010 – the names of the donors to the campaign don’t have to be disclosed. The money can come through STATE or FEDERAL sources – or both. To learn more about “dark money”, click here.

In March of 2021, an Oklahoma PAC called People for Opportunity, Inc. gave over 100 thousand dollars to an organization called WPAi – a political polling, research and analytics team – run by Chris Wilson – in support of Jake Merrick.

Who is People for Opportunity?

According to the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office, People for Opportunity was begun in 2020 by Jonathan Small – the President of OCPA and Dave Bond – the Vice President for Advocacy at OCPA.

Trent England is the David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow for the Advancement of Liberty and the Executive Director of Save Our States, a project with OCPA.

OCPA has long been an organization in part dedicated to the idea of School Choice – which includes ‘vouchers’; providing parents with tax dollars to send their children to private schools.

OCPA is often funded by grants from the Walton Foundation (during campaign cycles apparently), the State Policy Network – an organization of which they are an affiliate – as well as private and other donors. Because they are a private, non-profit organization, however, they do not have to report the source of their donations, only their expenditures.

In 2019, OCPA did make two expenditures.

One to the American Federation for Children – a school choice organization – and one to the OCPA Impact Inc organization.

OCPA Impact Inc., also does business as OCPA Oklahoma Policy Solutions, Inc. under the same EIN (tax number).

In 2019, they reported $19,933 in revenue, but again, from where that came who knows. Where it was spent was not recorded on their tax form either.

In fact, OCPA has LOTS of organizations registered with the OK Secretary of State’s Office. Unfortunately, our state is not a fan of transparency as it costs a minimum of $5 to request ANY documents from the SOS office on any registered organization and upwards of $10 per document to actually see the paperwork the SOS’s office requires for filing.

Why so many organizations associated with OCPA?

Where did the 100K come from for the donation through People for Opportunity?

Who knows? The only way to find out any information about these dark money groups is painstaking and not something many people are going to do. This is sad, because people who SPEND MONEY TO ELECT or REMOVE elected officials have INFLUENCE over the candidates they help elect.

This election cycle, an organization listed as Catalyst Oklahoma recorded expenditures of $50,620 for Jake Merrick’s opponent Kristen Thompson.

Who is Catalyst Oklahoma, Inc. ?

Catalyst Inc., is a dark money subgroup of OCPA with the Principal listed as Charles Sublett – a member of OCPA’s Board.

There is no 990 filing for Catalyst Oklahoma for 2019 and above, though there’s little the form would tell us but to whom the organization has given money.

Why would OCPA work so heavily in dark money in Oklahoma? Why have so many organizations and sub-organizations with so many different names associated? What does OCPA have to hide?

Why spend so much money to help Senator Merrick win and then turn around and spend more money to unseat him? If OCPA is so fired up about “empowering parents” by offering “school choice”, why not put the money being spent on elected legislators into starting new schools to help kids? How does it ’empower parents’ to spend so much money on legislative activities?

Dark money always leaves unanswered questions while it influences the legislative process in ways most ‘average’ Oklahomans can’t.

June 17, 2022 0

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