Oklahomans vote yes to retain 2 of 3 supreme court justices
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Something many Oklahomans were keeping a close eye on, a retention vote of three Oklahoma Supreme Court Justices.
This has been unprecedented with dark money groups spending millions on ads, both for and against keeping those judges.
The race was neck and neck all night.
Each justice who ends up with more 'yes' votes will keep their seat and serve another four years on the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Seeing the results, this now means only one supreme court justice is no more, Yvonne Kauger.
This will be interesting moving forward because some are still worried that Gov. Stitt may influence the nominating committee and future judges into an outcome he wants.
Stitt took to social media on the "X" platform Monday for one final push to Oklahomans to vote no, calling out the three supreme court justices for being appointed decades ago by "liberal democrats."
Tim Gilpin, a former Assistant Oklahoma Attorney General, says Oklahoma used to have a problem with corruption among judge before the state switched to its current judicial nominating system over 50 years ago.
Now that one justice is not retained, he is worried Oklahoma may find themselves back in the same situation, while Gov. Stitt says Oklahomans have spoken, and change is coming.
"The issue is the governor and his allies injecting politics directly and blatantly into it so that maybe that committee and judges and justices feel like they have to rule a certain way or they have to pick a certain way," Gilpin said. "In the past, the idea was to get people who are qualified non-partisan and noncommittal to any politician or political party."
"The judges go before Oklahomans to say, 'do you want to retain 'em or not?' It's a yes or no vote," Gov. Stitt said. "So, some of them have been on for over 40 years and I think Oklahomans were ready for a change."
We will continue to keep a close eye on this moving forward and will see how this impacts operations in the future.