Adam Kupetsky: State Question 836 would reform twisted system
- beth415
- Nov 30
- 2 min read
Sunday, 11/30/25
Op-ed by Adam Kupetsky, Published in Tulsa World
The 43-day government shutdown highlighted this country’s political mess.
Beholden to their parties’ most strident members, politicians cannot make the compromises required to govern effectively.
To be on the general election ballot, most Oklahoma candidates have to win their party primary. Only about 10% of voters — the most committed to the party (and the most hateful toward the other party) — participate in those contests.
If a candidate strays from the hate script and dares to compromise, he will lose to someone who promises not to. Oklahomans who want parties to work together will rarely have any meaningful vote.
Oklahoma Question 836 would reform this twisted system by replacing party primaries with one primary where all candidates would compete. The two top vote-getters advance to the general election. Any voter regardless of party affiliation can vote for any candidate. Period.
You can understand why parties, their regulars and collaborators with power to select voters' choices would oppose unified primaries. To maintain the current system, they make several, unpersuasive arguments.
You can have a say if you join the Republican or Democratic party and vote in their primary.
First, not everyone wants to join a party. Oklahomans are fiercely independent and don’t appreciate being told what to do. Second, Oklahoma isn’t split neatly into Republican and Democratic worldviews. Someone might agree with many Republican ideas, but also have beliefs that align more with Democrats, other parties or no party.
Unified primaries prevent parties from choosing their candidates.
The parties don’t have the inherent right to choose who is in the general election — the people do. Parties just establish themselves as a proxy for people who joined them.
Moreover, the state, not the parties, pay for the election apparatus used for the primary. Nor does 836 prevent a party from campaigning for their preferred candidate. The point is that voters shouldn’t have to artificially join a party to have a say.
Unified primaries allow the minority party to manipulate the primary.
This is a common misunderstanding, confusing open party primaries with the unified primary promised by 836. Oklahoma’s current system encourages voters to switch parties to back a weaker candidate, or to back a good candidate who cannot win the closed primary.
In Texas’ two-party “open primary," any voter regardless of political affiliation can participate in a party’s primary, allowing one party’s members to vote in the other party’s primary for the candidate least likely to win against their party’s candidate. The 836 unified primary, on the other hand, rewards the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, so voting for a weaker candidate in the opposite party would accomplish nothing and, in fact, would waste a vote that can put their preferred candidate in the general election.
