On to Plan B - the New Council

[in...@betterballotkc.org]

Friends --

The deadline just passed. This KCMO city council, which started out with such promise in 2019, developed habits of non-responsiveness not just to us, but according to complaints in the candidate forums, to many Kansas Citians. 

So, on to Plan B: the new council about to be elected. At least 6 of them will be new. 

Or we have Plan C - the city charter commission, which considers all kinds of city charter amendments (which is what our proposal for KC to use ranked choice voting is). That's where the mayor wants it, and since it's mandated every 10 years and the last one was in 2013, it's happening this year. Chances are high for us there, but it could take more time than Plan B. 

Either way, the Council votes on putting it on the ballot, so we need candidates to be acquainted with RCV and favoring it. We've had excellent luck in the candidate forums and have gotten much enthusiasm from some and interesting discussion with others. To see which is which, we have a page on candidate stances. 

Meanwhile, two major points: 

1. Time will be short then - but is long now!

We know this from experience: the point when we can say "vote yes on this question on this election date" will be a date altogether too close to that election date. They're not likely to give us enough time to get well organized for public education. 

But we have that time right now. In the best case scenario, the earliest it could be on the ballot is this November, and next year is also likely. Right now, we have plenty of time to educate the public. We've already been doing quite a bit, and along with national publicity, we find it common for people to already know about and support RCV. But we also still find plenty of people that need to learn. 

I'll say again: if we just win by 50.1% of the vote, we can't just say a win is a win, because the state legislature and/or secretary of state may try to pull legal shenanigans on us. But if we win by the lowest amount that RCV won by in a city last November - 56% - or do even better, then they'll probably decide that KC voters have spoken and they have better ways to spend their time than messing with it. 

So these months we have now to build up the yes vote are precious. 

2. Opposition is currently near non-existent, so now's the time.

Our main opposition has been from election clerks and the KC law department, but neither one of those could appropriately campaign for one side in an election. Yet we could have opposition arise that would endorse a no vote - once there's an upcoming vote to comment on.

They may do so on the basis of misconceptions, so we need to be getting to people to straighten out as many of the misconceptions as we can. 

Also, we want to have reached as many people as we can so we already have them convinced to vote yes. We don't want the suggestion of a "no" vote to be the first thing they hear. 

Therefore: April 4 and June 20, etc. 

The primary and general election for city council are the most important times to get voters, the kind we know vote in low-turnout elections. We'll therefore be reaching way more of the people we need to reach than we can in any other location. They're also in a civic state of mind at the time, and therefore quite receptive. 

We'll do plenty of other leafleting, tabling, and speaking to groups, of course. If you have any good leads on doing those, please let us know.

If you can give a day, a half-day, an hour, or just take a handful of our cards and take them to where you vote and, after voting, pass them all out and then go home - any amount at all is helpful, because every little bit helps. 

Please contact me, or hit reply and send me a note, if you can help on any of this. 

Rachel MacNair

for Better Ballot KC

Voice and text: 816-753-2057]

in...@betterballotkc.org