To the editor,
As you and many of your readers may know there are five amendments to the Missouri State Constitution on the ballot for this November election.
I’m sure many are already aware of Amendment 2 (legalizing sports betting) and Amendment 3 (lifting the state’s abortion ban), since these seem to be getting most of the attention out there. However, I think there is one amendment that has the potential to really affect Missouri’s future and that’s Amendment 7.
Now, when it comes to amendments to our state constitution, I am very conservative. The default for me is to vote “NO” on them; until an amendment proves to me that it needs to be added to our constitution, most of them don’t pass the smell test. But the one I want to write about, Amendment 7, definitely doesn’t.
It states in its ballot title, that it “Will make the Constitution consistent with state law to only allow U.S. citizens to vote.” However, the very first sentence of Section 2 of Article VIII of the Missouri State Constitution already says, regarding who can vote, “All citizens of the United States….” This amendment would change “All” to “Only” which is a meaningless and unnecessary change.
No, the real purpose of Amendment 7 is in the legalese of the second part of the ballot title, and that is to ban Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), also known as instant run-off voting.
RCV works by having voters rank their candidates by the preference in which they want them. For example: you have three candidates running in an election, Andrew, Bob, and Cathy. Let’s say you usually vote for Bob and really don’t want Andrew. The third-party candidate Cathy more aligns with your interests, though you would usually never vote for her because she is unlikely to get the most votes. With RCV, you can now vote for Cathy, by marking a 1 for her and a 2 for Bob.
With RCV if one candidate gets over 50% of the first-choice votes that candidate wins and there’s no need for an instant-runoff. But in our imaginary election, Andrew got 45%, Bob got 44%, and Cathy got 11% of the first-choice votes. Under our current voting system Andrew would be declared the winner, though most voters didn’t want him as their first choice. With RCV, the instant run-off begins, and Cathy is eliminated. Her second-choice votes are now assigned to the two remaining candidates. Roughly 9% of Cathy voters selected Bob as their second choice and Andrew got 2%. Now, the percentage vote total has Andrew with 47% and Bob with 52%, making Bob the winner, and more reflective of the views of the voting population.
Ranked-choice voting would allow for a greater expansion of third parties and help break the stranglehold that the two-party system has over our state. Currently, ranked-choice voting is not used anywhere in Missouri, though other states and local governments have begun to adopt it.
Approving Amendment 7 would prevent Missourians from even getting a chance to vote for whether we would want to approve ranked-choice voting or not, even for our local governments. If you believe in giving Missourians more choice and more voice, then consider voting “NO” on Amendment 7.
