Norman North is ready for voting day on November 6; they even set up a system for seniors to be excused if they were late to their first or second hour, as long as they showed their “I voted” sticker to the front desk. 

There are a few things that led to this system; first, the United States has one of the lowest voter turnout percentages in the entire world, at least among other democratic systems such as Italy or Germany. Teachers and administrative staff are taking steps to help young people vote to try and get voter turnout as high as it can be.

The second reason relates to the first, which is to reward democratic participation. Basically, the school would like to reward students for voting in an election (for most students, their first election) with an excused absence for the first two hours of the school day.

There are a lot of elections in Oklahoma, but the biggest one is the fight for the governor’s mansion. This gubernatorial race is between Kevin Stitt, a national businessman from Oklahoma with no previous political experience, and Drew Edmondson, a former Lieutenant Governor for the state of Oklahoma who has held political office for several decades.

Stitt is a conservative businessman and a political outsider, much like President Donald Trump. In fact, that is one reason he might win. It appears as though Stitt is using this comparison as a way to wage a political war against his Democratic opponent Drew Edmondson, who has been in politics for several decades and is relatively liberal.

The biggest issue that has come up for school districts across Oklahoma, and is definitely the driving reason behind excusing students to get out and vote, is teacher pay. Kevin Stitt has made it clear that he would have vetoed the bill passed into law in April that gave teachers a pay increase, which is partially funded by an increase in retail tax revenues, such as the tax on cigarettes. Drew Edmondson has taken the opposite view of Stitt, and also made it clear that taxes will continue to increase until teachers are treated right relative to the other states in America.

We will stay up and see what happens tonight and detail the results of the Oklahoma elections.

UPDATE:

The elections in Oklahoma turned out positive for the Republicans, although they lost one of their congressional seats to challenging Democrat Kendra Horn. Kevin Stitt, the Republican in the race for control of the governor’s mansion defeated Democrat Drew Edmondson, putting Oklahoma in the hands of a businessman with no prior political experience. 

Analysis shows that Stitt hasn’t voted in a gubernatorial race since registering in 1999. 

Democrats saw a better performance in national and state representative elections. For the Oklahoma House of Representatives (districts 45 and 46), Bryan Vinyard and Mark Etters suffered a defeat yesterday at the hands of Jacob Rosecrants, the incumbent Democrat, and Merleyn Bell (D, OK-45). For the U.S. House, Kendra Horn won district 5 over Steve Russel, the incumbent Republican.