Voter registration soars ahead of General Election

Voter registration soars ahead of General Election

(Oklahoma City) – Official voter registration statistics released Thursday show a net increase of more than 104,000 voters this year, with total registration well over levels for recent gubernatorial elections.

The Oklahoma State Election Board does an official voter registration count on November 1 in years where there is a General Election. This year’s count showed 2,120,843 people registered to vote, almost 100,000 more voters than at this time four years ago.

Republicans had 1,003,182 voters [47.3%], with 781,091 Democrats [36.83%], 8,675 Libertarians [0.41%], and 327,895 Independents [15.46%].

“These numbers are very encouraging, particularly following the exceptionally high turnout from this year’s primary election,” Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said. “It is important to keep in mind that registration is just the first step. We need people to get out and vote November 6.”

Long term trends continued to show the share of the vote increasing for Republicans and Independents at the expense of the Democratic Party, although all parties saw an increase in registrations this year. Republicans, Libertarians and Independents have their largest number of voters ever.

The number of Republicans rose to more than 1 million, the first time any party has had a million voters since the Democratic Party did in 2010.

To view historical voter registration statistics or to download a voter registration application, visit http://elections.ok.gov.