The popularity of Oklahoma’s straight-party voting option appears to be waning after a record-breaking surge four years ago.
Just under 38% of Oklahoma voters who participated in the Nov. 5 election checked the option to vote straight party for Republicans, Democrats or Libertarians in all partisan races, according to data provided this past week by the Oklahoma State Election Board. That’s down from 45.5% in 2020 , when more than 700,000 voters filled the bulk of their ballot with the stroke of a pen, and 42% in the 2022 midterm election.
Among the voters who cast a straight-ticket ballot, 69% checked yes for Republicans, 29.6% voted for Democrats and 1.4% marked Libertarian. These voters had the option to override the straight-party option in individual races by separately marking a candidate of a different party.
The straight-party option was most popular in southern and eastern parts of the state. Love County had the highest percentage of voters marking the straight-party option at 46.81%.