November vote: banning communities from deciding how they want to vote
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in...@betterballotkc.org
May 23, 2024, 4:15:12 PMMay 23
to Better Ballot KC
Friends --
The Missouri legislature has put on the ballot a constitutional amendment to ban ranked choice voting state-wide. The Ballotpedia page for it is already up:
That page says it's set for the November ballot, which is good, since it gives us more time to get our act together and campaign. That includes leafleting the voters coming out of the polls in the August 6 election.
The Kansas City Star has already put out a front-page above-the-fold article about the "ballot candy" that they put on the ban. It's designed so that many voters wouldn't even be aware that they're voting against ranking, because non-citizen non-voting (which is already the law) is listed first. If you have a subscription, you can access it at:
Letters to the Editor
This means that now is an excellent time to submit letters to the editor that can help educate the public. Early is always better than later when it comes to elections, and now is when they'd be most interested in publishing:
Bear in mind that letters to the editor are always a free way to get the word out, and we'll have to do that many times between now and November.
You can see points we often make to the public on our several cards:
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Among the points to make:
* Ranking is used in over 50 U.S. cities now. It's been voted in by the last 27 cities in a row (that is, a winning streak of 27).
* Exit polls show that voters are very satisfied with it.
* This is a ban on communities deciding for themselves how they want to vote
* There's no such thing as a local government that decides to use ranking without consulting the voters. Voters are always asked in an election whether or not they want to use it. Therefore, this isn't "protecting" any voters; it's keeping voters from having those elections. People don't need to decide if they like ranked voting in order to vote against this; they only need to think that communities get to vote on it if they want.
* Both major parties would benefit from having ranking because they could then get candidates in their primaries that had the support of the majority of people in those parties. Those are going to be better for them in the general election.
* This measure explicitly says that someone who wins the plurality of votes in a party primary - that is, the most votes even if it's less than a majority - goes on to the general election. This is deliberately saying that someone should win a primary even if the majority is against them. They win because other candidates divide up the majority's vote.
* Be sure to use the word "ban." People don't like bans.
Points NOT to make:
* This is not a partisan issue. Even though it was a partisan split in the Missouri legislature, there are other places in the country where the partisan split is reversed and it's the Democrats that oppose and Republicans that support. It's extremely important that we appeal to everyone. You'll see on the red card at the bottom of our information cards that a strong case can be made to conservatives, as well as to liberals or moderates. Ranking doesn't favor any particular party by itself. It only favors the candidates that actually have the support of the voters.
* This is not a third-party issue. It's true that third parties benefit by getting more votes as people rank them instead of merely voting for the "lesser evil" more likely to win. Accordingly, third parties are among our major supporters. Nevertheless, both major parties also benefit as the "spoiler" scenario will no longer mess them up and make them lose elections. And, as said above, party primaries will have higher-quality winners.
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If anybody would like to run their letter by us for constructive feedback, feel free to send back by email or to call to discuss it.
-- Rachel MacNair
for Better Ballot KC
Voice and text: 816-753-2057
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