C-Seg; Libertarian Supreme Court Case

Oklahoma election law entered the National Spotlight last week, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against opening up the state's primary system. State law currently lets parties invite independent voters to participate in their primaries, though neither the state Democrats nor the Republicans have so far chosen to permit that. At issue in this case is whether political parties should be allowed to let people registered in other political parties vote in their primary elections. Jim Linger is the attorney for the Oklahoma Libertarian Party, which wants to open its primaries to voters of all parties. You can form a political party now, as late as May 1st, by turning in petitions equal to 5 percent of the last vote for either President or Governor. Then the state has 30 days to check it out, but by the time they check it out and recognize the party under the political affiliation change rules in Oklahoma, you cannot change your political party registration for the month of June, July and August of it, even number gear.

So Oklahoma sort of locks out people who want to register in new political parties. Linger says this is particularly troubling in light of Oklahoma's already strict ballot access measures, which make it extremely difficult for third parties like the libertarians or the green party to get on the ballot in the first place. He argues that current state law violates the libertarians' first amendment right to freedom of association. But Oklahoma assistant attorney general, Wellen Poe, Jr. told the court that allowing cross-party primary voting could lead to a variety of dangerous scenarios. The potential problems are if another party is the courts have used kind of term poaching, and draining voters from the Republican primaries and getting them into their primary system. It takes voters away from the Republicans and Democrats, and if you start to drain those voters, then you affect the outcome of those primaries. By affecting those outcomes, you very well may affect the party message, and when you

start to skew that, then you start to skew the political system, and you start to disrupt both the party system itself, and the stability of the government, which is relying on a strong two-party system, basically since the origins of the country. We don't want to use force on anybody, on any political party, or on any voter. That's Attorney Jim Linger again. As he notes, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that states may not force political parties to take primary votes from people registered in other parties, but he wants Oklahoma parties to have that option. If the Republicans and the Democrats want to have a close primary, that ought to be up to them. And if other parties want to open their primary, that ought to be up to them to extend that invitation. And then it's up to each voter whether they want to accept the invitation or not. In recent similar cases, the Court has ruled that parties and not state election officials should be able to decide who can participate in their affairs. At one point during last week's oral arguments, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked whether the

state of Oklahoma has a vested interest in insulating major parties from competition. Again, Assistant Attorney General Wellen Poe. The states have an interest in ensuring that its political system is stable, that the exchange of ideas is there, that voters, when they go in to make those decisions, can make a educated or at least a calculated vote based on information, and avoid the disruptions that can come along with those variations and those changes in votes and the like. Still, Attorney Jim Linger suggests that the more choices voters are given, the more likely they are to vote. A decision in the case is expected this spring. I'm KGOU News Director Scott Gurion.