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SWMO Informant, Nevada, MO (2025)

07/13/2022

An Analysis on Initiative Petition 2022-051
3 of 3
Other Applications and a Look at Prior Missouri Elections

Now that top-four primaries and ranked choice voting have been explained, We turn our attention to the application of ranked choice voting in other states and the effects top-four primaries would have had on prior elections in Missouri.

Opponents of the amendment point to Maine’s Second Congressional District and its 2018 election as an example of why this system doesn’t work. We point to it for the opposite reason. In the 2018 general election, Bruce Poliquin of the Republican Party received 46.33% of the votes while Jared Golden of the Democratic Party received 45.58% of the votes. The remaining 8.09% were split among other candidates. With no candidate receiving a majority of votes, the instant runoff was initiated. Golden pulled ahead and received 50.62% of the votes in round two, giving him a majority. Opponents argue that Poliquin should have won because he received more votes in the first round. However, more people voted for another candidate. When the race moved into round two and Golden moved ahead, it showed that a majority of voters preferred Golden over Poliquin. This is important because our republican system is built on the idea that our elected representatives should represent their constituents. A system where someone can get elected with a minority of votes isn’t representative.

We also want to address the impact this will have on Missouri elections. We will be using filing information for the 2022 election and both filing information and election results from prior elections in our analysis. We will also break this into three parts: state legislature races, congressional races, and statewide races.

Every two years, 180 seats are up for election in our state legislature (all state house seats and ½ of state senate seats). In 2022, 64 house seats and 1 senate seat have only a single candidate running (spoiler alert: they will win their election). In addition to that, 96 house seats and 6 senate seats include candidates of only one party (H: 68R, 28D; S: 5R, 1D). In fact, in 2022, only 3 house races (2%) and 3 senate races (18%) are being run with more than 4 candidates. This means that in the other 160 house and 14 senate races, every candidate in the primary will automatically advance to the general election. In the remaining 6 races, members from the established parties (Democrat, Republican, and Libertarian) will compete in the primary to see who will move on to the general election. It is worth noting that the party that has received, on average, a higher percentage of the votes in the past 10 year will be guaranteed at least one seat in the general election. In all six of these districts, Republicans will be guaranteed one or more seats in the general election while other parties will have to work harder to ensure their candidates are on the November ballot. The same is true for previous elections. In 2020, 5 house districts and 1 senate district had more than 4 candidates in the primary. Of those 5 house districts, 4 districts involved candidates of only 1 party. This means that only 2 of the 180 state legislature elections in 2020 involved more than 4 candidates of different parties. The theory that this is a large scheme to elect more Democrats by knocking Republicans out of the general election is completely without merit.

Whereas congressional races usually involve more than 4 candidates unlike state legislature races, we looked only at past elections and concluded who would have made it onto the general election ballot based on primary results. The conclusion is this: the top-four primary system does not benefit one party over another. In every race from the 2012 election cycle to the 2020 election cycle, both Democrats and Republicans would have qualified for the general election. The only difference from our current system is that in some races there are more Republicans, in some there are more Democrats, and in others there are more of both. Republicans and Moderates in Kansas City and St Louis will now have the opportunity to first rank their preferred candidate and then rank a moderate Democrat over someone further from the center. Likewise, Democrats and moderates can first vote for their preferred candidate in every other congressional district before voting for a moderate Republican. The top-four primary system simply provides moderates and political minorities a chance to vote without feeling like they're simply throwing their ballot away. The effect carries over to the Senate races from 2010-2018.

Following the above trends, we conclude that the top-four primary system has no negative affect and isn’t biased against any political party in statewide elections. In the six statewide offices (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Auditor), Democrats and Republicans are both guaranteed a spot in the general election in every single race except for one. The only exception was the 2014 Auditor race where no Democrat ran. In all of these races, just like all the congressional and state legislature reaces, Democrats and Republicans would both be able to abandon their party lines and elevate a moderate Republican, moderate Democrat, Liberatrian, and Green in the primary. Going further this means some Republicans can rank a Libertarian as their first choice and Democrats can vote for a Green as their first choice in the general election. This opens up the possibility for a third party candidate surpassing one of the main two parties, which have both strayed away from their moderate bases.

I close by answering the question presented in the first part of this series of posts: why are so many Republican groups and candidates against IP 2022-51 if it appears to help them win seats? The response to this question is best answered by State Representative (and candidate for State Senate) Nick Schroer who opposes the amendment and has said that, “ranked choice voting is designed specifically to reduce the impact of political parties’ core supporters and benefit moderate candidates who do not accurately reflect party views but have broad across-the-aisle appeal.” His argument is based on the fact that by freeing moderates from voting for the two party candidates, it will hurt those two party candidates. It does, in fact, hurt the party candidates. By providing moderates (as well as conservatives who don’t like the Republican nominee and liberals who don’t like the Democratic nominee) the opportunity to elect someone else, the parties lose and the people win. Schroer goes on to say that Missouri is voting more conservative every election cycle and by opening up the field to moderates, Missouri will not vote for candidates that “truly reflect the will of the people.” Missouri is only voting more conservative every election cycle because the Republican party keeps nominating people who are more conservative every election cycle. If Missouri ends up voting the moderates into power like Schroer believes, then obviously a conservative vision is not “the will of the people.” IP 2022-51 is not about pushing a radical lefitsit agenda to vote more liberals into power, but rather providing an alternative path for Missouri to go down. Over the past few years, we have seen a rapid degrading of the integrity of our government. Wicked and partisan attacks by our elected leaders have been fueled by a rapid, full-paced sprint to the extremes of our parties. If IP 2022-51 hurts the parties by returning Missouri to the middle ground where it belongs, it should be considered a win; Missouri could heal the divide that we have endured.

Link to election date and results:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BG3f-0jjfQhivGLQzaj1693bC6WZ_-bj/view?usp=sharing

07/13/2022

An Analysis on Initiative Petition 2022-051
2 of 3
Ranked Choice Voting

The second post is focused on the more complex part of the amendment: ranked choice voting (RCV). RCV is easy to attack because its complexity makes it hard to understand. We will try to break it down for you here.

In our current system, a candidate can win without a majority of voters supporting them. These elected representatives do not have a mandate to represent their constituents in the legislature; a majority of voters voted for someone else in the election. Some states curve this effect by initiating a runoff when no candidate receives a majority in a general election. They take the top two candidates and voters vote for only one of those two. Say there is an election between Blue Cat, Red Dog, and Purple Fish. Blue Cat receives 45% of the vote, Red Dog receives 40% of the vote, and Purple Fish receives 15% of the vote. With no candidate receiving a majority, a runoff between Blue Cat and Red Dog takes place as they were the top two finishers. Some Purple Fish voters don’t trust Blue Cat so most of them vote for Red Dog. The result of the runoff is as follows: Blue Cat receives 47% of the vote and Red Dog receives 53% of the vote. Although Blue Cat received a plurality of votes in the first round, a majority of voters voted for someone else. Between just the top two candidates, a majority of voters prefer Red Dog. This standard runoff system has an issue though. Runoffs take place on another day which can sometimes be a couple weeks following the initial election day. Sometimes, this causes a lower turnout in voters. Ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, effectively eliminates this period by allowing you to declare who you would be voting for if your first choice were to not qualify for the runoff.

This turns us to disqualified ballots. Some argue that this method, which focuses on declaring a candidate a winner based on their majority of votes, can produce results where absolutely no candidate obtains a majority. How does this happen? Because of the top-four primary system, there are no more than four candidates in a general election. In the hypothetical conjured by the author of the flier, the candidates are Conservative 1, Conservative 2, Moderate, and Socialist. Everyone chooses their top candidate. Someone who considered themselves a moderate but favors the Democratic party may put Moderate as their first choice and Socialist as their first choice, but rank no other candidates. Or as in the case presented, someone may have put Moderate as their first choice and Conservative 2 as their second choice, but ranked no other candidates as they disliked both of the remaining two candidates equally and if neither their first nor second candidate was victorious, they wouldn’t care who won. If a ballot goes through all the candidates it ranks and has no other rankings, it is considered exhausted and is excluded from the total amount needed for the next round. This is exactly like in the standard runoff system mentioned earlier where the runoff takes place on a different day. On the first election day, everyone goes to the polls and votes. If in between day one and day two, their candidate is eliminated and they prefer no other candidate, they may not return to the polls on day two to vote for a candidate. Therefore, the total number of votes is less and a lower number is considered a majority. By not ranking past your first, second, or third choice, it is kinda like saying that you aren’t planning on going to the polls in the next runoff.

The post claims the hypothetical scenario concludes horribly for everyone. As a result of ranked choice voting, Moderate and Conservative 2 are eliminated and Socialist ends up winning. The fact is that this result is simply the will of the voters. A majority of voters truly prefer Socialist over Conservative 1. To elect Conservative 1 against the will of the majority because he had an early lead degrades our republic system by subjecting the majority to the will of the minority.

07/13/2022

An Analysis on Initiative Petition 2022-051
1 of 3
Top-Four Primaries

Ballot initiatives are an avenue for Missouri citizens to directly propose and vote on amendments to our Constitution. One of the potential amendments this November is the Missouri Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative, or IP 2022-051. This ballot initiative, which is still awaiting signature confirmation by the Secretary of State’s office, has already gained a bit of opposition for the wrong reason.

A flier has been circulated which has found its way on Facebook in an attempt to kill this ballot initiative before it even gets approved. The first part discusses the adoption of the top-four primaries. If adopted, rather than pulling a ballot of a political party on primary election day, candidates from every party will appear on the same ballot. This gives the potential for multiple candidates from the same party to appear on the general election ballot. This is where the post first trips up the facts. They form a hypothetical scenario where 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats run for a seat in an area where Republican voters outnumber Democratic voters. Because the Republican votes have been distributed almost evenly among the seven candidates with no favorite emerging, the two Democrats get more votes than any of the Republicans. The post claims that the two Democrats are the only two that will appear on the November ballot. The mistake here is that the top four, not two, candidates will appear in the general election. In their hypothetical, Democrat #1, Democrat #2, Republican #1, and Republican #2 will all appear on the general election ballot, allowing Republicans to still vote for a Republican in November. And seeing as how in this hypothetical district, the voters consist of 20 Republicans and 11 Democrats, a Republican win is highly likely.

I will also bring forward the point that this hypothetical errs in claiming that there are only two blocks of voters: Republican voters and Democratic voters. In reality, just under ⅓ of voters in Missouri identify as moderates, and a great deal of them are tired of choosing between two people they don’t like. But it's not just moderates who are frustrated with “lesser of two evils” or lose-lose situations. Conservatives, moderates, and liberals often agree that they would like to vote for someone else, but are stuck with the candidates elevated by the Democratic and Republican parties. Often, these candidates are too extreme for the moderates. In this new primary system, moderates have the opportunity to elevate both moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats to the general election. Although this system applies only to statewide, congressional, and state legislature elections, think of it as having the opportunity to vote for a moderate Republican or moderate Democrat rather than Donald Trump or Joseph Biden.

Turning away from hypotheticals, it is important to note that in Missouri state house and state senate elections, it is very uncommon for individual races to include more than 4 candidates (meaning every candidate in the primary automatically qualifies for the general election). In 2022, only 3 state house races have more than four candidates. In all of them, the party who regularly gets a majority of the votes are guaranteed a spot in the general election, contrary to what the post leads some to think. The same is true in the state senate races in 2022 with 3 more seats where the majority party is guaranteed seats in the general election. In fact, in these six seats, Republicans, the majority party, are guaranteed spots while other parties, including Democrats and Libertarians, are not. It does raise the following question: why are so many Republican groups and candidates against IP 2022-51 if it appears to help them win seats? This is a question that will be answered later. We go further in noting that Democrats and Republicans both would have earned at least one spot in the general election in every statewide and congressional race in recent elections. Although having both a Democrat and Republican appear on the general election ballot is similar, this primary system is different because it allows a second Republican and/or Democrat on the ballot. This gives Democrats and Republicans alike the opportunity to vote for a moderate rather than someone who they view as too extreme.

This system also encourages competition in a system that is currently rigged towards whoever the party elevates in individual races. In Democratic strongholds like Kansas City and St Louis as well as the many Republican strongholds across the states, those closer to the extremes on the spectrum have to work harder against moderate candidates who represent the middle and other side in the general election. Extremists are now subject to a system that doesn’t always guarantee them a win.

07/13/2022

SWMO Informant is a group of dedicated individuals who are committed to ensuring that people in our community are well informed, especially when going to the voting booth or in conversations with friends or family.

We have experienced a rapid polarization of our political system which can be felt here in Missouri. We have strayed away from each other as a result of misinformation or lies that have been mass-shared on social media platforms. We hope to combat this misinformation and restore trust in resources found online. We are committed to only sharing the truth; our purpose is not to push a political agenda.

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07/13/2022

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