True School Choice Is Eliminating Property Taxes - Sherrie Conley

In this ROPE Report Short, our guest for Wednesday, June 26th, Oklahoma Representative Sherrie Conley and Jenni White talk about what really makes "school choice". Is it the government giving people taxpayer dollars to privately school their kids (vouchers), or is it the government allowing taxpayers to have our property without property taxes (Ad Valorem) so that taxpayers could help pay to educate their own children? This led to a bit more discussion on taxation...

The video in its entirety (recorded live on the 26th) can be found on our Rumble and YouTube channels.

Schools End-Around Mandatory Reporting Laws - V1SUT Vantage, Ashley Rolen

Ashley Rolen has spent years fighting to have the coaches who broke her trust and sexually abused her while she was a student at Little Axe High School decades ago removed from public education. She has yet to be successful. 

In this video V1SUT Vantage blogger, Mary, Ashley, Michael Grande and Jenni White discuss how schools are getting around mandatory sex abuse reporting laws, allowing public school employees who have abused students to just disappear from the school and wind up at another without ever being made to pay for their crimes. If we are to save Oklahoma children from sexual predators, this has to change.

Find the full video on our YouTube and Rumble channels.

Change MUST Happen To Protect Public School Students - Ashley Rolen; ROPE Report Live

Ashley Rolen submitted statements to the Little Axe school district in 2002 describing the sexual abuse that had been perpetrated on her by several coaches employed by the district. 

Nothing was done. Ashley moved on with her life. 

But as Ashley tells us in the full podcast (YouTube and Rumble), the day she heard about Olympic physician, Larry Nassar, and the stories of the brave gymnasts who came forward and told of their sexual abuse while under his care, she knew she had to make it right - for the other girls to whom this had happened and ones to whom it might be happening now. 

Ashley filed a complaint with the Oklahoma State Department of Education under Joy Hoffmeister. She was told that they had no investigators for her case and that she'd have to do her own investigation - which she did - and returned it to the OSDE under Ryan Walters. Still, nothing has been done. 

In this video, Ashley talks about what needs to happen for these reports to be taken seriously by school administration and the OSDE.

Find more on Ashley's story at V1SUT Vantage in her series on Harmful Coaching.

Observations Of Poor Voter Rolls In Oklahoma County - ROPE Report Short

Michael and I talk about our specific experiences with the voter rolls in Oklahoma County. Michael from a candidate’s perspective during his run for Edmond School Board, and me from the time the Town of Luther (where I was Mayor for a term) decided to send out letters to ALL prospective voters, alerting them to the date of an upcoming vote to increase the sales tax. Unfortunately, both Michael and I had the same experience with the voter lists we received. Michael got a list of the voters in his district to knock doors and send literature, and I got a list of voters in my district to send letters to, from the Oklahoma County Election Board (OCEB). Michael had loads of voters on his ‘walk’ list that door knockers found to be not living at the addresses identified by the OCEB and Jenni had a stack of about a quarter of the total letters she sent returned because of wrong addresses.

It makes sense that a candidate with nefarious purpose, might be able to ‘test’ a list by sending out mailers to everyone on the list given him/her by their county election board. They could then check addresses returned to make sure people don’t live at the listed address, wait until election time, apply for an absentee ballot with that person’s information and vote like the person is still on the rolls at that address. In this way, people could illegally vote absentee – and how would they be caught doing so?

From my time on the Oklahoma County Election Board (OCEB), I can tell you that there would be no way for ballot counters to have any idea if the person voting absentee lived at the address listed on the envelope – absentee ballots are notarized to signify that the voter is who he/she says they are – but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that anyone can apply to be a notary.

At the OCEB in 2023 when I was a Board member, the way absentee ballots were processed, we never even knew if there were notaries notarizing more than the lawful maximum of 20. The ballots were never laid out in piles per notary, they were simply checked to make sure all lawful information was present on the envelope and removed to another room for removal of the envelope.

Many of the elections in Edmond (Ronda Peterson, Michael Grande, Margaret Best – to name a few) that I’ve followed have had Republican candidates win at the ballot box, but then lose the race by a few absentee ballots. It certainly seems plausible and one reason Oklahoma needs to clean up our voter rolls.

Because I didn’t make a video clip of Chris’ perspective, I asked him to send me some of his suggestions for making sure Oklahoma’s voter rolls are as clean as possible. 

Here’s what he sent:

Some of the things I would change are things we didn’t get into.  I’d get rid of partisan registration (and so also straight party voting) and in fact I’d favor doing away with partisan primaries altogether.  But that’s probably a different show that could also talk about open primaries, Top-Two jungle primaries, ranked-choice voting, election calendar reform, and that kind of stuff.

To be specific to the voter roll, I think it’d be really easy to add a question of “has your address changed?’ when voters sign the book at the polling place on Election Day and get that new address.  I’d also like to see an interstate voter roll integrity organization, but I’d like it to be limited to providing information for states to use as they see fit rather than dictating either to include or exclude voters.  But a major point that Wendi and I alluded to but didn’t really state straight out is that the voter rolls are always going to be heavily dependent upon the actions of individual voters.  All the laws in the world only work as well as people choosing to comply and if things are made too cumbersome it fuels the argument for a more wide-open system which is something I’m sure many people don’t want.

Wendi also sent me a follow-up with her ideas:

1. SHOW PHOTO ID when reregistering.
2. Reregister over 2 years and then archive the old rolls.
3. Issue the State Election Board funds to advertise the reregistration, including mailers, commercials on local tv and radio networks. 
4. Allow provisional ballots at the polls for the first presidential election after the reregistration deadline for those who still wish to vote but missed the above advertising.
5. Have special nursing home teams to get out and reregister the elderly and infirmed.

And here are Amber’s:

Election laws should be changed so that registered voters & candidates – through canvassing – can report voters not living at the address for which they are registered. 

The State Election Board should then go through the appropriate steps to verify the findings and remove the voter from the rolls once verified.

The voter rolls need to be cleaned more often, and the State Election Board needs to look at the rolls and go through the proper process to get correct lawfully physical addresses for voters on the rolls and remove any addresses violating O.S.26

After reading the blog and watching the videos, take some time to have a discussion with your duly elected Representative and Senator about this issue – even forward them this article. As Wendi pointed out so well in her closing, clean voter rolls containing only lawful entries are of upmost importance to – not only the security of Oklahoma elections – but the electoral process itself.

Find the full video on our Rumble and YouTube channels.

ROPE Report Live OK Voter Roll Re-Register Debate – Who Won?

Sorry to disappoint – that was a click-bait title (LOL) – but no one ‘won’ the debate. 

In fact, it was one of the best discussions we’ve had on the ROPE Report. Chairman of the Libertarian Party and Bethany City Council Board Member, Chris Powell, joined our friends Amber Evans and Wendi Montgomery Dial (OK State Director of Restore Liberty) to talk about whether or not voter rolls in Oklahoma need to be archived and all voters re-registered. 

We gave each of the three 5 minutes in a round robin to talk about why – or why not – the voter rolls should be re-registered. You can find the entire live broadcast on our YouTube and Rumble channels, but here is a wrap-up of the pro-position by Wendi. 

In the video, Wendi references a candidate challenge – of which Chris was a part, because the candidate was a Libertarian – adjudicated by the Oklahoma State Election Board during candidate filing earlier this year. Amber, Wendi, Michael and I talked specifically about this issue in our ROPE Report LIVE from April 26th of this year, starting at about 31 minutes in. 

It’s well worth the watch if you’re so inclined – very interesting information.

Find all the links in the blogpost here!

Is Your Private School Now A 'Non-Public' School? Sarah DeNeui - ROPE Report Short

Wednesday, June 5th, Broken Arrow resident and homeschooling mom, Sarah DeNeui, spoke with Michael and Jenni about the new "Office Of School Choice" that's been advertised in a press release by State Superintendent Ryan Walters. This is a sticky wicket. 

Mr. Walters worked for a privately-funded organization that championed school choice options. Why increase the size of government by taking over the job of a non-profit? Why can't that non-profit continue to do that job? 

That's one question. The next question came after Mrs. DeNeui spoke with her contact in Walter's office regarding the concerns she had about this office. The response she received, mentioned a new word - "non-public" education. 

Really, there are only two forms of education - private (paid for privately by parents) and public (any school that receives an appropriation from the state for education) - so where does "non-public" come in. We ask - and answer - that question in this video clip from the live video which can be found under the heading of "live" videos on our YouTube channel or on our Rumble channel.

You'll want to watch this video whether or not you have your child/children in private schools - especially if you're concerned about government overreach and federal intervention in local education.

If You Can't Answer These Questions, You Can't Support Vouchers; Sarah DeNeui - ROPE Report Short

Wednesday, June 5th, Sarah DeNeui - a homeschooling mom and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, resident - came on the podcast to talk about the bill that ushered in Oklahoma's "Universal School Choice", HB1934, 2023.

She began to research the bill because it included a provision for homeschoolers to collect $1000.00 in tax credits if they provided all the information required and were eligible. She wanted to know if homeschooling could somehow be damaged by the program so she did a deep dive.

What she found concerned her, so she started asking herself questions about the entire program - especially the part where the state gives public money to private schools. Those who believe vouchers are a good thing should take the time to answer each question Sarah has thoughtfully asked.

If you can still support vouchers after this video, there simply isn't a way to be a self-identified "conservative", or "small government" or even "Republican". There really isn’t…