OKPOLICY.ORG
Oklahoma’s governor this week set a June 2026 election date for a special election on raising the state’s minimum wage. The 21-month span between the governor announcing the election date and the election itself is more than six times longer than the median time for all other state question elections during the last 10 years.
This spring, more than 157,000 Oklahomans signed petitions to request a statewide election to raise the state’s minimum wage through State Question 832. If passed, the measure would increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2029, starting with an increase to $9 per hour in 2025.
Looking back at the last 10 years of special elections (both through citizen-driven initiative petitions and legislative referendums) shows how much of an outlier the election date for SQ 832:
- The governor set the SQ 832 election date for June 16, 2026, which is 644 days away from the executive order that established the election date.
- For all state questions since 2014, the median number of days between executive proclamation and the election date is 96 days. (The average number of days – excluding SQ 832 – is 145 days.)
- Before SQ 832, the longest period between the governor’s order and election date was 498 days for SQ 776 and 777, legislative referendums on the death penalty and a “Right to Farm” measure respectively. Those dates were set by the previous governor.
- For the 23 state question elections that have been held or scheduled since 2014, all but four have been held in conjunction with the November general elections. The exceptions are:
- There are 11 special election dates available on the 2025 Oklahoma State Election calendar. There are likely at least two other special election dates in the 2026 election cycle (February and April) before the June 16, 2026 primary, but the state election board has not published that calendar.
- The governor has previously scheduled a special election without other statewide races or issues on the ballot, namely SQ 820 (marijuana legalization) in the March 7, 2023 election.
OK Policy Executive Director Shiloh Kantz said that the extreme delay on the SQ 832 vote means many hard-working Oklahomans will go even longer without a much needed raise to the state’s minimum wage.
“It’s been more than 15 years since the minimum wage in Oklahoma has been increased, and in that time the cost of living has increased by nearly 50 percent,” Kantz said. “Such an extreme delay for a statewide vote on this issue disrespects the real needs of more than 200,000 Oklahoma workers who would benefit from increasing the state’s minimum wage.”
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The Oklahoma Policy Institute has published two resource pages to help Oklahomans understand the state question and the minimum wage issue in general:
- SQ 832: Minimum Wage Increase | Information and Resources
- What you need to know about the minimum wage in Oklahoma
Additional resources:
- Initiative petition process is vital to Oklahoma’s democracy. Lawmakers should keep it accessible. [OK Policy]
- State Questions [Oklahoma Secretary of State]
- State Question 832 [Oklahoma Secretary of State]
