Republicans make history, overtaking Democrats on county rolls for first time

Keri Gordon, Tahlequah Daily Press, Okla.
·2 min read
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Jan. 25—For the first time in history, the number of Republican voters in Cherokee County has surpassed Democrats.

An annual voter report shows an uptick in local registration rolls, with 260 more people eligible to cast ballots since 2022.

The Oklahoma State Election Board released a voter registration report Jan. 18, and it shows over 2 million people are registered.

The state board conducted a statutorily-required voter list maintenance process wherein inactive and duplicate voters are removed.

According to the report, 51 percent of registered voters in Oklahoma are Republicans, while close to 30 percent of voters are Democratic. Libertarians make up for less than 1 percent of voters, and 17 percent are independent. Over the past few years, the Libertarian rolls were growing, but have since slowed; independents are now on the rise in terms of numbers.

"The routine voter list maintenance process was conducted on Jan. 13 and removed 2,855 duplicate voter registrations and 83,719 inactive voter registrations from Oklahoma's voter rolls," stated a press release from the OSEB.

The state election board is required to conduct the maintenance by law every two years following a General Election. "Duplicate registrations that were deleted matched newer registrations by the same person at a new address."

The inactive registrations that were removed were for people who did not confirm their addresses in 2019 and didn't cast ballots through the 2022 General Election.

Locally, out of the 25,913 voters, there are 15 more Republicans than Democrats. Rolls who 10,619 registered Republicans and 10,604 Democratic voters in Cherokee County. Over 4,440 people are registered independent, while there are only 249 Libertarians.

In January 2022, 25,650 Cherokee County residents were registered to vote, with 11,408 listed as Democrats and 9,855 Republicans. There were also 233 Libertarians and 4,154 independents listed. But by July 2022, the number of registered voters had inched up to 26,175, and Republicans had increased their numbers to 10,128. The number of Democrats decreased to 11,349, while there were 4,459 registered independent voters and 239 Libertarians.

The deadline to register for the Feb. 14 municipal election was Friday, Jan. 20, and voters have until Feb. 10 to register for the election on March 7.