John Hancock, host of "Hancock & Kelley" on with our partner station KMOX, and co-leader of the Better Elections campaign, joined Marc to explain his support of a new bi-partisan ranked-choice voting initiative making it's way through Missouri.
Marc is against the change, believing it will "disenfranchise" voters and cause their ballots to, essentially, not matter in some cases. But John is in favor of it, saying the process actually gives more options for voters, regardless of party affiliation.
The two had a discussion this morning, which you can hear in the audio above.
"Right now, when we go to vote in November, the choices are made for us in August, right? You've got a Democrat and a Republican and maybe a Libertarian, and that's it, that's your choice," says Hancock. "This (ranked-choice) plan takes the top four vote getters, puts them on the ballot in November. You've got a real choice now."
A group called Better Elections is hoping to have the ranked-choice voting system in place for Missouri 2022 November elections.
"Why would you want to change the system that we have, where Republicans have a primary, they pick their candidate [and] the Democrats have their primary, they pick their candidate. Somebody wants to run as an independent, they're free to do that," says Cox. "And they're all on the ballot in November, and those are the candidates we choose from and the one that gets the most votes wins. What's wrong with that?"
The proposed system allows registered voters to vote for their top choice from any party in one primary election, then the top four would move onto the general election, where voters can rank them in order of preference. Party labels still would be included next to candidates' names on the ballot, so voters still would know which candidates represent which party.
The constitutional amendment has been approved by the Secretary of State’s office for signature gathering. To appear on the ballot, the campaign will need at least 160,000 signatures by May.
Former Missouri Senator John Lamping says the initiative petition will have bi-partisan support because it's designed to give control of candidates to the political party:
David Roland is a spokesperson for the petition. He explains why he believes this is the right move for the state:
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