Initiative launched to organize Oklahoma's 488,000 independent voters (Tulsa World)

Initiative launched to organize Oklahoma's 488,000 independent voters

By Randy Krehbiel
Dec 16, 2025

Andy Moore says Oklahoma's election system is a form of taxation without representation.

So, on the 252nd anniversary of the most famous expression of that complaint — the Boston Tea Party — the long-time Oklahoma City activist vented his frustration, not by disguising himself and throwing someone else's beverages into Lake Hefner, but by trying to organize Oklahoma's nearly 500,000 unaffiliated registered voters.

Moore's main target is Oklahoma's closed primary elections. Because so many of the state's partisan elections are determined in primaries or runoffs, most are decided by a small fraction of voters — and independents are excluded altogether.

"This is something that I've joked about for years, but somewhat seriously as an independent voter and just always feeling kind of left out of the conversation in politics," Moore said after announcing the formation of Oklahoma Independents.

For about a decade, the Oklahoma Democratic Party allowed independents to participate in its primaries, but last week the state election board announced the ODP had failed to file the required notice.

The party insists otherwise, but as of now it appears independents will be shut out of primary elections that their taxes help pay for.

Thus, Moore's no taxation without representation cry.

"After last week, there were a lot of us … who said, 'We've got to do something now, otherwise we're going to have half a million voters who don't just get mad, but they might get apathetic and tune out entirely.'

"You realize we can't just leave it up to chance or trust that that political parties are going to do something in our best interest, when that's not exactly why they exist in the first place."

Moore said his group intends to encourage independents to sign an initiative petition for State Question 836. That measure proposes eliminating closed primaries in favor of a single-ballot system similar to that used in the state's municipal and school board elections.

The main differences are that candidates would be identified by party and a final general election between the top two finishers would occur regardless of whether one earned a majority in the primary.

Of course, independents could address their situation by simply affiliating with one of the state's three recognized political parties. 

So why don't they?

"I don't know," said Moore. "I can speak for myself. I was a Republican for about 10 years, and then a Democrat for about 10 years, and I've been independent now for about 10 years.

"The reason I switched was just feeling this increased tension or focus on partisanship and being a pure Republican or a pure Democrat, and what felt like an increasing unwillingness to compromise on issues," Moore said.

"That's not how most people think. Most vote for the candidates they like best. That might be all of the same party, but they might be different parties. And I think looking at especially the national level, a lot of voters are just kind of grossed out by the two parties."

Moore has been executive director of the National Association of Nonpartisan reformers since 2021. Since 2016 he's headed Let's Fix This Oklahoma, a nonpartisan nonprofit concerned with voter engagement.

He said Oklahoma Independents has no formal connection to the SQ 836 campaign, but that he has talked to some of its leaders.

"These elections are being paid for with public dollars," said Moore. "So to allow … essentially a private organization, like a political party, to accept public funds and then tell the public, 'Some of you can participate in our popularity contest and some of you can't,' that at face value feels undemocratic. That's not the epitome of the American way."