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Judges on the 2026 ballot in Oklahoma: What you need to know about judicial retention
Oklahoma is one of 39 states where voters have a role in selecting judges. On Nov. 3, 2026, Oklahoma voters will decide whether to retain four Supreme Court justices, one Court of Civil Appeals judge, and four Court of Civil Appeal judges. Judicial elections usually don’t attract as much publicity as other races, and so far this has held true this year. However, in 2024, conservative dark money groups targeted three Supreme Court justices appointed by Democratic governors. Two of those three Supreme Court justices were retained, however one was not. Across the board, these elections were decided much more narrowly than previous elections. This marked the first time that an appellate judge from Oklahoma lost a retention election. [OK Policy]
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Policy Matters: Oklahomans can vote with confidence
Before Oklahomans decide who and what to vote for on Nov. 3, there is an earlier decision to make: Are you ready to vote? You can register or update your registration until 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9. If you plan to vote by mail, request your absentee ballot by Oct. 19. Early voting runs Oct. 28–31, and polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. Those deadlines matter because democracy depends on participation. But meaningful participation also requires confidence in the process. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
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OK Policy is hiring: Join our team as our new Southeast Regional Organizer
Our Regional Organizer helps OK Policy plan and run community-based advocacy campaigns that support our policy goals. This role is part of Together Oklahoma, OK Policy's grassroots organizing arm, and works directly with communities and partner groups across the state. The Southeast Regional Organizer must live and work in the Southeast Region. Deadline to apply is Oct. 18. [Learn More & Apply]
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Join us for Voices in Action — Turning community conversations into statewide change
This summer, we hosted listening sessions in towns and cities across the state to provide an opportunity for the public to have conversations with our fellow Oklahomans about issues that matter most in their communities. This October, we’re coming back to share what we heard in those communities and statewide, and to discuss ways we can use our collective power to make a difference on those issues.
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State Question 847: What Oklahoma Voters Need to Know Before Nov. 3: Oklahoma lawmakers were getting an earful from constituents about rising homeownership costs, including property taxes. In response, Republican legislative leaders filed a constitutional amendment to reduce how much a property’s assessed value, used to calculate property taxes, can increase each year. Oklahoma voters will see the proposal, via State Question 847, on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. [Oklahoma Watch]
Who should choose Oklahoma’s judges? What SQ 845 would change: Who should choose Oklahoma’s judges? It’s a question at the center of a ballot initiative voters will see Nov. 3. For nearly 60 years, Oklahoma’s Judicial Nominating Commission has helped determine who gets considered for some of the state’s highest courts. [KOCO]
Loss of in-state tuition has undocumented Oklahoma students rethinking their American dreams: In August 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Oklahoma for offering in-state tuition to students without legal status in the U.S. The following month, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education voted to revoke its policy allowing for the lower tuition rate. In the past year, the changes have shifted how Tulsa’s immigrant community views education and opportunities that come with it. [La Semana via Tulsa Flyer]
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"I’m reminded of the old saying, ‘everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.’ By that I mean, everyone would like to find a way to help the cities and towns, but no one wants to take a political risk to do it. The tax ‘reforms’ I see on the horizon seem to be coming from people whose motivation is to stifle growth in public revenue."
- Former House Speaker Steve Lewis, writing that most lawmakers want to cut taxes, but raising other taxes to offset those cuts is unpopular. A recent interim study explored ways to update Oklahoma’s tax code to keep up with the shift from buying physical goods to digital services. Since many digital purchases are not taxed, state revenue has not kept pace with economic growth. Because of Oklahoma’s SQ 640, the Legislature can pass a tax cut with a simple majority, but a new tax would need approval by three-quarters of all legislators or a statewide public vote. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
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Judicial Retention Election
Oklahoma is one of 39 states where voters have a role in selecting judges. While judges to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, and Court of Civil Appeals – known collectively as appellate judges – are appointed initially by the Governor based on recommendations from the Judicial Nominating Commission, their continued service is subject to being approved in a judicial retention election held every six years. These election are staggered so that some portion of the state’s appellate judges will face reelection at the time of the November general election in every even-numbered year.
Unlike other state races, appellate judges do not have opponents, and their party affiliations aren’t listed on the ballot. Instead, voters cast a simple yes-or-no vote on whether the judge should be retained in office. Because their elections are not competitive, Oklahoma’s Code of Judicial Conduct does not allow appellate judges to raise campaign funds or establish campaign committees.
The Oklahoma Constitution provides that if an appellate judge does not file for retention or receive a majority of “yes” votes, the office becomes vacant and the Governor appoints a replacement based on a list of candidates proposed by the Judicial Nominating Committee. In Oklahoma history, no judge had been defeated in a retention election until 2024. That year, the judicial election campaign saw outside groups spend millions of dollars promoting and opposing an effort to defeat three sitting Supreme Court justices deemed as too liberal. Following that effort, Justice Yvonne Kauger was defeated after falling just short (49.8 percent) of the majority she needed to be retained. The two other Supreme Court justices were narrowly retained, as were three Court of Criminal Appeals judges and six Court of Civil Appeals judges, all by healthier margins.
[Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here]
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Opinion: Oklahoma’s one-party rule has failed. Voters should demand better
Oklahoma does not have to settle for last place. We are a state of builders, teachers, veterans, entrepreneurs, farmers, energy workers, caregivers and neighbors who know how to solve hard problems. We should expect a government that matches that character: practical, honest, competent and focused on results. That is why Oklahoma voters must take a hard look at whether one-party control is delivering for our children, our families and our future.
I write as a political moderate, not a party loyalist. Raised in a conservative Christian household as the son of an Air Force veteran and a public school teacher, I have lived in Oklahoma for 35 years while helping run a fourth-generation family business. I believe in personal responsibility, but I also believe leadership should be judged by outcomes.
By that measure, one-party control has failed us. Republicans have controlled the Oklahoma House since 2004, the Senate since 2008, and the governor’s office since 2011. That is long enough to own the results — and the results are not good.
I am not asking anyone to abandon their values; I am asking Oklahomans to apply them. If we believe in family, government should strengthen the home by ensuring children can read, learn and stay healthy. If we believe in limited government, we should reject a state that spends too much managing failure through prisons and untreated illness while investing too little in equipping families to succeed.
Political affiliation is not an inheritance, and governance is not a Bedlam game. It is about our schools, our health and the future we choose together. The Constitution gives citizens the power to consent to government — and to withdraw that consent when leaders do not deliver. Oklahoma can be better than this. We can be a state that educates its children, grows prosperity and chooses accountability over reflexive incarceration. But that requires the courage to stop rewarding failure.
Oklahoma voters do not owe any party permanent loyalty. We owe our children schools that prepare them, families a health system that serves them, and communities a government that spends less time managing failure and more time preventing it. The current party in control has had its chance. A different perspective, willing to reach across the aisle for all Oklahomans, is a necessity.
[Greg Hodgen / The Oklahoman]
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$87 million - The estimated annual savings Oklahoma could realize by diverting 19,378 eligible people from traditional prosecution to alternative court programs that provide treatment. [Healthy Minds Policy Initiative]
2 - The number of times Oklahoma has increased taxes since 1992 when voters approved State Question 640. Under SQ 640, raising taxes has required either a three-fourths vote in both legislative chambers and the Governor’s signature, or majority approval by voters in a statewide election. Since then, voters have approved only one tax increase, SQ 713, which raised the tobacco tax in 2004. Lawmakers have only met the three-fourths threshold once, with HB 1010xx, passed in response to the education protests in 2018. [OK Policy]
150% - Increase in fees for a sample misdemeanor DUI case in 2015 compared to 1992. That sample case carried 10 mandatory fees totaling $607 in 1992. By 2015, the same case carried 22 fees totaling $1,528, a 150% increase driven entirely by new and inflated fees, since the underlying $200 fine never moved. Because SQ 640 places significant barriers on raising new revenue in Oklahoma, state courts have created new fees or increased their costs to address funding issues for state courts. [Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform]
77% - The share of registered voters who expressed concern about artificial intelligence being used to spread misinformation or influence public opinion ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, according to a recent survey. AI-related misinformation was the most widely reported election concern, with the same percentage of voters expressing concern in 2024. [Bipartisan Policy Center]
38% - The estimated share of Oklahoma’s prison population experiencing symptoms of a serious mental illness — nearly seven times the 5.5% of U.S. adults estimated to have a serious mental illness. [Healthy Minds Policy Initiative]
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Closing the revolving door: How a treatment diversion program can help end the cycle of substance use and crime: Diversion programs, which refer people with substance use disorders to treatment instead of prison, have become increasingly widespread. However, due to the limitations of previous evaluations of such programs, it is unclear how effective they are. This study used a rigorous design to determine the impact of an alcohol and drug diversion program on health and legal outcomes among a sample of justice-involved individuals. [Recovery Research Institute]
What Principles Should Guide State and Local Tax Policy?: An adequate tax system raises enough funds to sustain the public services required for any healthy and successful community, like public education, roads and bridges, health care, and public safety. Conversely, an inadequate tax system undermines public services, harming everyone, often with particularly dire consequences for children, seniors, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations, and often making it harder for families and businesses to succeed. Since states and localities have laws requiring them to balance their budgets, they need to make sure there’s enough revenue to fund public services in the coming year. But it’s not enough just to look at present-day needs. [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy]
Two Roads to Extraction: How Oklahoma’s Courts Fund Themselves From Criminal Defendants: Oklahoma’s criminal courts do more than decide guilt and hand down sentences. Instead, they’ve become a revenue source for the very county governments and law enforcement agencies that prosecute, jail, and supervise the people who owe them money. A new report from Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, Two Roads to Extraction, uses original county-level data to show exactly how this works, and why the burden falls hardest on rural Oklahomans who can least afford it. [Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform]
What Voters Think Ahead of the 2026 Midterms: Election Information, Confidence, and Concerns: A new survey from the Bipartisan Policy Center and Morning Consult examined where voters get election information, their confidence in vote counting, and their concerns ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The survey of 3,144 registered voters found that while voters continue to rely on local election officials for trustworthy election information, online search engines remain their most common source. Confidence in the vote-counting process remains high, with partisan differences narrowing compared to 2022 and 2024. Although Democrats and Republicans differ in their primary election concerns, both groups expressed concerns about misleading information, particularly AI-generated content, potentially disrupting the elections. [Bipartisan Policy Center]
State Legislation Issue Brief Series: Trends in Mental Health and Criminal Justice State Policy: People with mental illness are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, with approximately two in five incarcerated individuals having a history of mental illness. Many are incarcerated for minor, nonviolent offenses related to untreated mental health conditions, leaving jails and prisons to function as de facto mental health facilities. Expanding access to mental health care and diverting individuals from incarceration can support recovery, reduce recidivism, and improve community safety. The Sequential Intercept Model identifies opportunities to connect individuals with mental health and substance use conditions to treatment and support at different stages of criminal justice system involvement, from before law enforcement contact through probation. Key policy recommendations focus on diversion programs, juvenile justice, conditions in custody, reentry services, competency restoration, and civil commitment, with an emphasis on improving access to appropriate mental health care and reducing unnecessary incarceration. [National Alliance on Mental Illness]
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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know.
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Contact
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