At the Oct. 26 meeting, the Oklahoma County Green Party elected new officers and added at-large steering committee members.

The slate elected was:

Female Co-chair — Sue Ann Bruns
Male Co-chair — Micah Gamino
Secretary — Jim Dearner
Treasurer — James Branum
At-large members — Doug Vincent, Kristina Usery and Shelby Syfert

Jonalu decided to rotate off the board and devote her energy and time to developing a platform for the party.

A forum on “Third Party Ballot Access” was presented by the OCU chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild on Oct. 14. The panel of speakers featured Rachel Jackson of the Oklahoma Green Party, Chris Powell of the Oklahoma Libertarian Party, and Thom Holmes of the Oklahoma Constitution Party. The forum was attended by students as well as the general public. Photos from the event were published along with a story also about Oklahoma third parties in the Oct. 20 issue of the Oklahoma Gazette (unfortunately they did not make that story available online).

The Executive Committee met and discussed the ballot questions that will be before Oklahoma voters on Nov. 2. The question and the official OK Green Party endorsements are below. On questions where no consensus could be reached, or where the committee felt it did not have enough information to make a decision, no recommendation was made; these are indicated by “Make no statement.” On some of the questions, particularly the lottery and anti-gay marriage amendment, a formal statement will be made and distributed to elaborate our position.

A list of the questions can be found here:

www.state.ok.us/~elections/sqgen04.pdf

#705: Lottery. Recommend NO.
#706: Amending OK Constitution for education lottery trust fund.
Recommend YES.
#707: City and county funding for development, etc. Recommend NO.
#708: Further limiting use of rainy day fund. MAKE NO STATEMENT.
#711: Marriage amendment. Recommend NO.
#712: Indian tribal gaming. Recommend NO.
#713: Tobacco tax increase. Recommend NO.
#714: Change to qualifications for homestead exemption. MAKE NO
STATEMENT.
#715: Property tax exemption for injured vets. MAKE NO STATEMENT.

On Oct. 7, Oklahoma Green Party Executive Committee member Randall Smith was the guest speaker at a meeting of the recently formed Young Green Party Club at Classen School of Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City. Randy spoke about the state party’s platform and activities, and took questions about the Iraq war, the draft and other issues of concern to students and young people today. It’s exciting to see the next generation of Green activists and leaders here in our state!

Since Oklahoma’s ballot access laws are the most stringent in the nation, no third party candidates will appear on the ballot this November. In addition, Oklahomans who try to write in the candidate of their choice will have their ballot discarded, uncounted. In every other state in the country, voters either have more candidates from which to choose, or can write the name of their prefered, or both.

To bring attention to this injustice, the NOTA for President campaign has been started to urge voters to leave the presidential selection blank, thus registering a protest vote for ballot reform in Oklahoma. For more information, see the campaign website at www.nota4oklahoma.info.