If I understand their draft language it looks problematic. It seems like they designed it so that people who lose primaries generally have no chance to appear on the ballot. I don’t see a good reason to give political parties that much power over ballot access.
Having a system where an incumbent who loses a primary can’t appear on the ballot means that the benefit of protecting incumbents from extremist primary challenges disappears.
Another alternative would be to allow the top two candidates from each party primary ballot access for the general election.
It seems like a very useful improvement over what I presume is current election law in Missouri. If there’s any existing mechanism for a primary loser to get on the general election ballot (as an independent?) I don’t see how this initiative overrides that. What am I missing?
I agree that’s an improvement about the status quo, but I think it leaves some possible advantages on the table that people might expect with approval voting.
If there’s any existing mechanism for a primary loser to get on the general election ballot (as an independent?) I don’t see how this initiative overrides that. What am I missing?
As far as I can see you need to register to be an independent before the primary ends and gather 10,000 signatures.
If you have first-past-the-post I can see why you might not want to let someone register as an independent after the primary is over, but I see no good reason for that in approval voting.
I also see no reason why the incumbent shouldn’t just be able to appear on the ballot. If a majority of people want to reelect the incumbent they should be able to do so even if the incumbent is not the most popular candidate in his own party. Allowing for that makes bipartisanship easier.
Of course it leaves things on the table. Presumably the authors judged that it’d be infeasible to directly attack party authority. If you’re going to have party primaries (never mind first past the post), it makes some sense for them to have consequences. Approval/freedom voting ought to allow for dispensing with primaries altogther, but I totally respect that is likely too big of a bite right now.
Great cause, godspeed!
Interestingly it appears Show Me Integrity and Missouri Agrees have rebranded approval voting as freedom voting.
https://www.showmeintegrity.org/freedomvoting
https://www.missouriagrees.org/learn-more
Or if the rebranding already existed elsewhere, I’m idly curious about its origin. No mention yet in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
If I understand their draft language it looks problematic. It seems like they designed it so that people who lose primaries generally have no chance to appear on the ballot. I don’t see a good reason to give political parties that much power over ballot access.
Having a system where an incumbent who loses a primary can’t appear on the ballot means that the benefit of protecting incumbents from extremist primary challenges disappears.
Another alternative would be to allow the top two candidates from each party primary ballot access for the general election.
I guess you’re commenting on https://www.sos.mo.gov/cmsimages/Elections/Petitions/2024-110.pdf
It seems like a very useful improvement over what I presume is current election law in Missouri. If there’s any existing mechanism for a primary loser to get on the general election ballot (as an independent?) I don’t see how this initiative overrides that. What am I missing?
Yes, that document.
I agree that’s an improvement about the status quo, but I think it leaves some possible advantages on the table that people might expect with approval voting.
As far as I can see you need to register to be an independent before the primary ends and gather 10,000 signatures.
If you have first-past-the-post I can see why you might not want to let someone register as an independent after the primary is over, but I see no good reason for that in approval voting.
I also see no reason why the incumbent shouldn’t just be able to appear on the ballot. If a majority of people want to reelect the incumbent they should be able to do so even if the incumbent is not the most popular candidate in his own party. Allowing for that makes bipartisanship easier.
Of course it leaves things on the table. Presumably the authors judged that it’d be infeasible to directly attack party authority. If you’re going to have party primaries (never mind first past the post), it makes some sense for them to have consequences. Approval/freedom voting ought to allow for dispensing with primaries altogther, but I totally respect that is likely too big of a bite right now.
For my future reference: I don’t see the rules you cite in the section of the Missouri constitution that the initiative would amend https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/Publications/CurrentMissouriConstitution.pdf?v=202212#page=124 so it must be in the statues; I see the 10k (for statewide offices) signature requirement for independent candidates in https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=115.321&bid=6088 winner of party primary to be only candidate of that party in general https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=115.343&bid=6100 and I’m not sure I see the requirement to register as an independent before the primary ends, but likely I’m just overlooking that, or it is implied by the various timing requirements? https://revisor.mo.gov/main/PageSearch.aspx?tb1=independent%20candidate&op=and&tb2=&idx=2&chapter=115