US state of Oklahoma set to vote on death penaltyOKLAHOMA CITY -- This November, voters in the state of Oklahoma will not only help choose the next U.S. president, but also decide a ballot measure with big implications for the future of the death penalty. "We're allowing the people, who overwhelmingly favor the death penalty in Oklahoma, to show certain entities that they want this," said state representative Mike Ritze, an Oklahoma Republican who was one of the proposal's authors. But there have been a lot of questions raised in the last several years over the state's death penalty. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Oklahoma has executed 112 people, the most per-capita of any state and second overall only to Texas' 538, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The question now is whether voters are becoming more willing to consider alternatives to the death penalty in the staunchly Republican, Bible Belt state.

Source: The China Post October 27, 2016 16:12 UTC