Oklahomans narrowly voted to retain two of the state’s three Supreme Court justices on the ballot in Tuesday’s election after anonymous groups spent millions trying to influence voters.

Voters chose to retain Justices James E. Edmondson and Noma Gurich, but not Yvonne Kauger. It was the first time in state history that voters chose not to retain a judge.

All three justices on the ballot were previously appointed by Democratic governors. Gov. Brad Henry appointed judges Edmondson in 2003 and Gurich in 2011. Governor George Nigh appointed Kauger in 1984.

In Oklahoma, it is rare for state Supreme Court justices to fail to prevail by a large majority of votes, and retention issues typically attract little attention.

According to the Oklahoma Board of Elections, voters chose to retain the state Supreme Court justices every time they appeared on the ballot over the past decade, by an average of 62.8%. The lowest vote to retain a judge in the past decade was 58.7%, according to the data.

According to unofficial results from the Oklahoma State Election Board on Tuesday night, Edmondson had the strongest result of the three justices: 51% voted for retention, while Gurich narrowly voted for retention with 50.3% of the vote. Only 7,555 votes gave Gurich the lead, out of more than 1.4 million votes cast. Kauger narrowly lost the majority with 7,047 votes. Only 49.8% of voters supported keeping her in place.

Kauger’s loss opens a vacancy on the state Supreme Court that now allows Gov. Kevin Stitt to appoint her successor from a pool of candidates selected by the state’s Judicial Nominating Commission.

As the results show, voters this year still chose by relatively large majorities to retain all judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Civil Appeals.

“This is a historic day,” Stitt said in a statement The border. “Voters have made it clear that they are tired of activist justices on our Supreme Court who do not share our values ​​in Oklahoma. It’s time to look at the place with new eyes.”

Edmondson and Gurich, meanwhile, will serve another six years before appearing on the ballot again.

Judges and magistrates are usually prohibited from advocating for retention.

Outside groups had spent more than $3.6 million campaigning for and against all three judges as of Tuesday evening.

The first ads urging voters not to retain the justices came from a group called People for Opportunity, which is affiliated with the Oklahoma-based conservative think tank Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Although the nonprofit group doesn’t have to disclose to voters who is funding its campaign, its tax records are being reviewed

The border found that the group received $450,000 last year from a national organization that helped shift the federal judiciary toward the ideological right.

Late Tuesday, People for Opportunity reported that it had spent more than $1.6 million advocating for the justices’ defeat, more than any group participating in the election.

Dave Bond, spokesman for the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and People for Opportunity, did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment late Tuesday evening.

Another group, 46 Action, which is affiliated with Gov. Kevin Stitt, spent $447,507 advocating for the judges’ defeat. Although this group is required to disclose its donors to voters, donations to it were initially channeled through a sister nonprofit organization, obscuring the true source of the funds.

Two other dark money groups spent more than $1.5 million combined to lobby for the judges’ retention. None of these groups, which describe themselves as nonprofit limited liability companies, are required to disclose who funded their attempts to influence voters.

One of those groups, Protect Our Freedoms LLC, is an Ohio-registered company that is connected to a larger Ohio-based dark money network that regularly spends money on elections in Oklahoma. Although the group was founded in 2021, it does not appear to have tax-exempt status from the IRS yet.

The second group, Hands Off Our Courts LLC, was formed less than a month before the Delaware election. That group said it spent $270,000 on mostly digital ads advocating for the justices’ retention.

Republished under Creative Commons license from The Frontier, a nonprofit newsroom producing fearless journalism with impact in Oklahoma. Read more at www.readfrontier.org.

Free Press publishes this report as a collaborative effort to provide the best possible coverage of government issues that affect our readers.

A veteran investigative reporter who has covered eastern Oklahoma for more than 15 years, Clifton joined The Frontier in April 2017. He has covered a variety of topics from criminal justice to politics for publications such as The Tulsa World, The Oklahoma Gazette and Oklahoma Watch. Clifton can be reached at (email protected). Follow him on Twitter @Cliftonhowze