Oklahoma Election 2026 Category

Tuesday, February 10, 2026, is the primary election date for any Oklahoma school board elections with three or more candidates. (Two-candidate elections, like the Tulsa Public School District 4 and District 7 races, have a bye and will appear on the April 7, 2026, school general election ballot.)

The complete list of elections is here. You can use the Oklahoma Voter Portal to see if you are voting tomorrow, check your polling place, and look at a sample ballot.

There are 415 independent (K-12) school districts in Oklahoma, 91 elementary (K-8) districts, and 29 technology center (CareerTech) districts, and every one of those 535 districts has a school board term expiring this year, but only 13 of those elections drew three or more candidates.

• Asher (McClain, Pontotoc, Pottawatomie)
• Chouteau-Mazie (Mayes, Rogers, Wagoner)
• Drumright (Creek, Payne)
• Grandfield (Cotton, Tillman)
• Hobart (Kiowa)
• Keys (Cherokee)
• Moffett (Sequoyah)
• Moss (Hughes)
• Okay (Wagoner)
• Rush Springs (Grady)
• Seiling (Dewey, Major, Woodward)
• Silo (Bryan)
• South Coffeyville (Nowata)
• Wilson (Carter, Love)

Two more seats have elections to fill unexpired terms:

• Central (Sequoyah)
• Metro Tech Center (Oklahoma)

It's pretty funny for advocates of top-two jungle primaries (SQ 836) to complain about turnout and participation in legislative and statewide elections while saying nothing about school board elections, which have exactly the system they want to impose on the entire state with even lower turnout and few candidates.

In these primaries, a candidate receiving more than 50% of the vote is elected; otherwise, the top two candidates advance to the April 7, 2026, general election.

There are more school bond issues than school board seats up for a vote: 28 districts (only one in Tulsa County) have at least one bond issue proposition on the ballot.

Jenks school district has two bond issue propositions totalling $20,300,000. According to the Bond Disclosure, Jenks Public Schools Proposition No. 1 asks for $19,640,000.00 for buildings and equipment, while Proposition No. 2 seeks $660,000.00 for student transportation equipment. Proponents claim that property taxes will not increase if the propositions are approved, but taxes would certainly decrease if the propositions are defeated. The biggest items on the list are $5.9 million for "Tennis Facility Upgrades," $3.71 million for "technology equipment district wide," and $2.6 million for "Frank Herald Fieldhouse Expansion and Renovation."

There are other matters up for a vote tomorrow.

House District 35 voters will choose between Democrat college teacher Luke Kruse and Republican rancher Dillon Travis to fill the seat vacated by Ty Burns (R-Pawnee).

Burns resigned effective October 1. Burns pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors for incidents of domestic abuse and assault involving family members in November 2024 and April 2025. He received a one-year suspended sentence and must complete a 52-week Batterer's Intervention Program. Rep. Burns was one of the more moderate Republicans in the Legislature, earning a 67% cumulative average on the Oklahoma Conservative Index for the five years he served.

House 35 is centered on Pawnee County, with sections of bordering counties (Payne, Creek, Noble, Osage). Sadly, the Republican nominee is the CAMP candidate (as was Ty Burns) and is attracting significant PAC money. (CAMP is the RINO campaign consultancy that supported Democrat Karen Keith's 2024 campaign for Tulsa mayor.) The seat will be up for election again this fall. Were the Democrat to win this special election by some fluke, Republican voters could nominate a grassroots conservative in June without having to defeat a well-funded PAC-backed incumbent in the primary.

Oklahoma City Council chairman David Holt, who wants to Californicate Oklahoma, is up for re-election, with one challenger, Matthew Pallares. The part-time at-large seat on the council, also known as "mayor," has no executive authority under OKC's council-manager form of government; the City Manager, hired by the whole Council, is the CEO of city government. If elected, Pallares hopes to direct more attention and support toward neglected areas of the city.

Several other cities and towns have municipal elections including Collinsville, Pawhuska, Sapulpa, Norman, Midwest City, Muskogee, Okmulgee, Pryor Creek, Ponca City, Hugo, Ada, Krebs, Seminole, Sallisaw, Wewoka, Alva, Durant, Yukon, Purcell, Walters, and Mangum.

Bartlesville has five propositions on the ballot: Propositions 1 through 3 are general obligation bond issues, which would increase property tax rates. Here is a list of all the bond issue projects. Proposition 4 extends the 1/4-cent economic development sales tax for five years. Proposition 5 extends the 1/2-cent capital improvement program sales tax for five years. If the propositions are defeated, the sales taxes would expire on June 30, 2026; if passed they will be extended until June 30, 2031.

• PROPOSITION NO. 1, FIRE FIGHTING APPARATUS PROJECT
• PROPOSITION NO. 2, STREET AND BRIDGE PROJECTS
• PROPOSITION NO. 3, PARKS AND RECREATIONAL FACILITIES PROJECTS
• PROPOSITION NO. 4, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM SALES TAX EXTENSION (ordinance with list of projects)
• PROPOSITION NO. 5, CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (CIP) SALES TAX EXTENSION (ordinance)

The City of Cushing is re-voting on five city charter amendments:

Voters will consider five propositions addressing updates to the Charter. These topics were previously approved by voters in 2024; however, due to a technical issue with notification procedures, those results were invalidated. To honor the will of the voters, the topics are being presented again.

The proposed amendments will modernize the City Charter and eliminate inconsistencies with State Law.

Three counties are voting on sales taxes. Johnston County is voting on a five-year extension to its 1-cent sales tax, 63% of which goes to general county government.

Shall the resolution of the Board of County Commissioners of Johnston County relating to:

Levying an excise (sales) tax of one percent (1%) upon the gross proceeds from all sales to any person taxable under the sales tax law of Oklahoma, providing for administration and collection of tax; requiring filing of returns; providing for interest and penalties for failure to pay tax when due; providing for refund of erroneous payments; requiring taxpayer to keep records, vendors to collect tax from purchaser at the time of sale, and establishing liens; making tax cumulative; defining items, providing severability or provisions; pledging the monthly income of the revenue of said tax to the General Fund for a period of five (5) years, beginning January 1, 2027 & ending December 31, 2031 as follows:

Emergency Services: City & Rural Fire Protection 6%, Ambulance Service 8%, Civil Defense 4%, Sheriff's Reserves 1%, General to Emergency Services 1%; Community Services: OSU Extension & 4-H 8%, Counseling, Inc. 1%, County Free Fair 2%, Senior Citizens 4%, General to Community Services 2%; General County Government: Courthouse Maintenance & Operation 16%, Support of County Offices 40%, General to County Government 7%

Be approved by the electors of Johnston County?

Latimer County will vote on a permanent 1/4-cent sales tax:

Shall a 1/4 cent sales tax in Latimer County by the Latimer County Government continue perpetually for the establishment, maintenance and operation of County Government, Latimer County Solid Waste and Latimer County 911 be approved by the people and divided as follows: 1/8 to Latimer County General Fund; 1/16 to Latimer County Solid Waste Trust Authority; 1/16 to Latimer County 911

Woodward County has a single sales-tax proposition that looks like it should be two separate issues, making a 1/10th-cent tax permanent and extending a 3/10th-cent tax for 15 years. Some civic-minded county resident ought to challenge this in court, because it blatantly violates the single-subject rule in the Oklahoma Constitution.

Shall a proposition of Woodward County, Oklahoma, making permanent, with no tax increase, one-tenth (1/10) of one (1) percent of the existing County sales tax for general government purposes, including, but not limited to, jail operations and maintenance, courthouse operations, public safety, and all other lawful functions for the benefit of the County; and extending three-tenths (3/10) of one (1) percent of the existing sales tax for a period of fifteen (15) years, with no tax increase, for qualified economic development and community facilities purposes including, but not limited to, matching funds for state and federal grants, electrical, water and sewer upgrades, road and bridge improvements, fire and EMS service support, promotion, retention, and expansion of business and industry, and all other projects that promote economic growth for the benefit of the County; providing for all revenues to be administered by the Board of County Commissioners and subject to annual budgeting, audit, and public reporting, as authorized by Title 68 O.S. §1370; and authorizing the pledging of sales tax revenues for the payment of principal and interest on any indebtedness incurred by or on behalf of the County, if applicable, be approved?

UPDATE with RESULTS: The lowest turnout election across the state was in the Town of Kendrick in Lincoln County. All 8 voters (out of about 60 registered) voted in favor of granting ONG a 25-year franchise to provide natural gas.

Most school bond issues passed. Jenks's passed with about 83% for each proposition, but turnout was just under 4% of registered voters. Democracy!

School bond issues in Bridge Creek (Grady County), Canton (Blaine), and Locust Grove (Mayes) managed a majority but fell short of the 60% threshold for passage. One of the two school bond issues Hulbert (Cherokee County) ended in a tie vote; the other broke 50% but fell short of the 60% threshold.

School bond issues in Marietta (Love), McAlester (Pittsburg), Meeker (Lincoln), Merritt (Beckham), and Weatherford (Custer) districts didn't even get 50% of the vote, with some failing by 40%-60% or worse.

McAlester Public Schools was seeking $4.7 million for a 12,000 sq. ft. STEM building, to house robotics and aerospace programs and also serve as a safe room. To their credit, they published a detailed cost estimate prepared by Crossland Construction. But the bond issue would have increased property taxes by 9%, which is substantial and probably explains the defeat. From the Bond Transparency disclosure, it looks like voters approved a $27,430,000 bond issue in 2021 for a new classroom and multipurpose building (Activities Center), but those bonds have not actually been issued, and additional bond elections in 2024 and 2025 approved a total of $3,090,000 for "windows, glass, glazing and storefronts" and "drywall" for the same building; those bonds were issued. Seems odd -- will have to dig further.

Weatherford was asking voters for an eye-popping $201 million to pay for a brand-new high school campus, plus converting the existing high school into the middle school. This would have amounted to a 10% property tax increase. The bond would have been repaid over 24 years, and the majority of the bond issue revenue would go to interest and fees. The actual project cost was only $82 million.

Ryan Michael Lowe won the Muskogee mayor's race by 11 votes over James Robert Gulley. 86% of Oklahoma City voters decided to let David Holt pretend to be important for another 4 years, but turnout was only just over 10%, despite using an election method that Holt swears will be more democratic and improve voter turnout.

All of Bartlesville's tax propositions passed with 70% or better. All three county taxes passed by wide margins.

A flock of very aggressive petition circulators have been accosting shoppers in parking lots over the last month or so, trying to meet the signature requirement to put State Question 836 on the Oklahoma ballot. The deadline for signature collection is in the next few days.

They call SQ 836 an initiative petition for open primaries, but that isn't accurate. Texas and other states have open primaries by virtue of the fact that they don't have party registration for voters. In Texas, each election year you decide before the primary date in March whether you will take the Republican, Democrat, or some other party ballot, and that limits you to that party for the rest of the year, but you could choose to take a different party's ballot the following year.

SQ 836 would set up a jungle primary, in which all voters (all who bother to show up) would choose from all candidates of all parties in a single primary. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote, the top two candidates, regardless of party, would advance to a runoff. The only difference between this and the City of Tulsa's non-partisan elections is that party labels could appear on the ballot.

Under the SQ 836 system, the general election (really a runoff) would only offer the voters two choices. There would be no third-party candidates, no independent candidates, no option even for a protest vote against the top two.

It's a bad idea that sounds very small-d democratic. An example of how it goes wrong is the governor's race in Louisiana in 1991: Several reasonable candidates (including incumbent governor Buddy Roemer) split the majority of the vote in the primary, so that the top two to advance to the general were Edwin Edwards, a crooked former governor who had lost the 1987 election, who had already been tried for corruption, and who would later serve time in prison for racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, and wire fraud, and David Duke, a former Klan Grand Wizard. There was a popular bumper sticker at the time that read, "Vote for the Crook. It's important." Because it was a top-two runoff, voters had no other options, no independent or third-party candidates to choose from, no way to cast a protest vote.

Wikipedia's description of that election:

The first round primary gubernatorial contest included Roemer, Edwin Edwards, David Duke, and Eighth District Congressman Holloway who all ran in Louisiana's open primary. Roemer was wounded by his mistakes as governor, while Edwards and Duke each had a passionate core group of supporters. Roemer placed third in the primary. One of the contributing factors to his defeat was a last-minute advertising barrage by Marine Shale owner Jack Kent; Marine Shale had been targeted by the Roemer administration as a polluter, and Kent spent $500,000 of his own money in the closing days of the campaign to purchase anti-Roemer commercials.

Had Holloway not run, Roemer likely would have finished second and given voters a sensible choice in the runoff. The SQ 836 system is very sensitive to spoiler candidates, who, with some dark-money backing, could win enough support to take out all the reasonable choices in the race.

Average voters who have been seduced by SQ 836 believe that they'll have as many choices as they do today. But nothing is static, and these changes will push parties to return to the proverbial "smoke-filled rooms." As a strategic matter, parties would develop private processes to select a party-backed nominee to represent the party on the ballot, in order to avoid splitting the majority party's vote among several candidates and allowing the other party to win with a tiny minority. To enforce this unity, parties would have to impose penalties on any party member who files for office without the party's endorsement. This is the system used in the UK; the nomination process is entirely private.

SQ 836 is a massive, two-page-long constitutional amendment, an awkward add-on that would be called "Article 3A." That link will take you to the actual language that the petition-backers wants to stick into the Oklahoma Constitution. The details of Oklahoma's election processes are currently set out in statute, where they can be adjusted by legislation over time. SQ 836 would write processes in stone. Even if you wanted something like SQ 836's system, but saw some minor changes you'd want to make, you wouldn't have the power.

This massive constitutional amendment is generic, developed by its out-of-state promoters, and it doesn't plug in neatly to the language used elsewhere in Oklahoma's constitution. It even has a severability clause, for pete's sake, which means the authors of SQ 836 expect that some aspects of it will be thrown out by courts; who knows what will survive? Voters and candidates will have to live with uncertainty while challenges move through the courts, and whatever does survive court challenges will be extremely hard to change however mutilated it may be.

Backers say we need this because there are too many elections decided in Republican primaries because no Democrats, Libertarians, or independents bother to file for office. There's an obvious remedy that doesn't require a constitutional amendment: File for office, and be sane enough to appeal to voters.

Back in the 1970s, when my family lived in Wagoner County, there were many county offices that were decided without any input from my parents, who were rare registered Republicans in that heavily Democrat county. That was the norm all over Oklahoma as recently as the 1970s, but the situation has completely flipped, without the help of constitutional amendments that change the election system. Republicans started running for those offices, and voters, who were already voting for Republicans over the loony leftist Democrats at the Federal level, started voting for Republicans at the county and local level. 1964 was the last time that Oklahoma gave its electoral votes to a Democrat, but it wasn't until the 2000s that Republicans gained majorities in the legislature, and it was the 2010s before the GOP became dominant in county government.

There's a lot more that could and has been said. OCPA has a lot of material on SQ 836 on their website. OCPA has also set up a website to urge Oklahomans NOT to sign the 836 petition: DeclineToSign.com

If you signed the petition for SQ 836 and have come to regret it, there is a way to rescind your signature. There is a form from the Secretary of State's office that you will need to fill out, then sign in front of a notary public (UPS Stores and banks usually have a notary), then submit in person or by mail to the Secretary of State's office in Oklahoma City. Withdraw of Signature Affidavit - Statewide Petitions - oksos2025.pdf. Here are the instructions:

1. Please provide your name, address and county information, as it appears on your voter registration record.
2. Must identify and state the petition number and state question number for signature removal [Petition Number 448, State Question 836]
3. Along with the date the petition was signed
4. Execute/Sign your affidavit, in witness of an Oklahoma Notary Public (only handwritten, original signatures are accepted).
5. Notary public must fully execute their witness statement accordingly.
6. Then, please mail or deliver in person your original (copies are not accepted), fully executed affidavit to:

Oklahoma Secretary of State
Exec/Leg Division - Statewide Petitions
Oklahoma State Capitol Bldg.
2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Ste. 122
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73105

No Republican elected official has come out in support of SQ 836. David Holt, a former Republican state senator who now serves a part-time non-partisan position as chairman of the Oklahoma City Council, is its most prominent supporter.

The filing period for the 2026 Oklahoma school board elections begins Monday, December 1, 2025, and ends Wednesday, December 3, 2025. Candidates file at the election board of the county which contains the district; for districts that extend into neighboring counties, candidates file in the county in which the school district headquarters is located. Across Oklahoma, every geographical K-12 (independent) school district, K-8 (elementary) school district, and technology center district has at least one seat up for election every year. Filing is open each day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The school primary election will be held on February 10, 2026, and the general election on April 7, 2026. If only two candidates file for an office, no primary will be held. If three or more candidates file, a primary will be held, and if one candidate receives more than 50% of ballots cast, that candidate is elected; otherwise, a general election will occur with the two candidates receiving the highest number of ballots in the primary.

Elementary school districts have three board members elected at-large and also elect one member every year to a three-year term. Technology Center districts have seven members with rotating seven-year terms. Independent school districts in Oklahoma (except for three) have five board members who serve five-year terms, and Ward 1 will be up for election this time around. Oklahoma City, Enid, and Tulsa districts each have seven election districts, each with a board member elected to a four-year term, and Oklahoma City also has a board chairman, elected by the entire OKCPS district to a four-year term.

I should point out for those new to our state that in Oklahoma school district government is completely disconnected from county or municipal government. Although school districts often take the name of the city or town where they're headquartered, their boundaries do not align with municipal boundaries, and the City of [Place] has no involvement in the management and operation of [Place] Public Schools.

In the Tulsa Technology Center district, the term of District 7 board member Dr. Jim Baker is expiring. District 7 covers the southernmost part of the Tulsa Tech district, including all of Liberty, Glenpool, and Bixby school districts, the bulk of the Jenks school district, and portions of Union and Broken Arrow districts.

This year, two Tulsa Public School board seats are up for election: District 4, held by conservative Republican E'Lena Ashley, and District 7, held by progressive Democrat Susan Lamkin, the current board president. In 2022, Ashley conducted a door-to-door, grassroots campaign to defeat the incumbent, while Lamkin prevailed in a high-dollar battle against former District Attorney Tim Harris, a conservative Republican. District 4 is the eastern part of the TPS district (basically anything between Pine and 31st Street east of Memorial), while District 7 is the southernmost strip (roughly south of 51st between the Arkansas River and Memorial).

In most years, the vast majority of school board seats draw only one candidate. That's not surprising when the filing period falls at the beginning of the Christmas season when our energy and attention is focused elsewhere. Even if there is an election, it typically draws very low turnout. The two-month-long campaign period features short days, cold temperatures, bad weather, and holidays, all of which hinder door-to-door campaigning and volunteer availability. BatesLine has long promoted the idea of holding municipal, school district, and county elections in the fall of odd-numbered years, with two-year terms for every school board seat. This creates a regular rhythm of election season, with statewide and federal elections alternating Novembers with local elections.

We won't know for sure who's running until the close of filing. In state elections, you could often get advance notice by seeing which candidates for a given race had filed a Statement of Organization form with the State Ethics Commission, required within 10 days of your campaign spending or receiving in excess of $1,000.

Soon, we'll be able to do that for school and municipal races as well. SB 890, authored by Sen. Julie Daniels and passed unanimously in both houses this past session, moves reporting for county, municipal, independent school district boards, and technology center boards to the State Ethics Commission. The changes in the law went into effect on November 1. (Daniels, a Republican, represents Senate District 39, covering Washington & Nowata Counties and northern Rogers County.)

That's good news for the public, as we'll no longer have to file an open records request with the school board clerk and pray for a timely response. Eventually, we'll be able to search for all reports on a given school board race on the web, with no gatekeeper. Rather than request filings from various county election boards, city and town clerks, and school district clerks, rather than having to decipher and digitize handwritten reports, we'll be able to search online through electronically filed reports for nearly every elected office in the state.

But not quite yet. The State Ethics Commission has been rolling out a desperately needed update to their online filing and search website, known as Guardian. Guardian 2.0 is in beta-test, and the Ethics Commission has prioritized the tools needed for campaign committees, lobbyists, and elected officials to file required reports, but the public search functions are not yet operational. The Ethics Commission website advises: "Campaign finance information remains available by request until public reporting tools are fully enabled [by emailing] ethics@ethics.ok.gov." Keep in mind that some school board candidates may have filed Statements of Organization for this election with the district clerk prior to the new law taking effect.

For now, we'll have to look to public announcements and the daily report from the election board to track who has filed for next year's school board races.