Missouri politicians have introduced a gimmick to silence your voice on the November ballot

Have you ever been told that you don’t need to read the fine print? Have you ever been given a document with paragraphs of text in tiny font and told not to worry about the content?

Reading the fine print can be important not only in your personal life, but also in elections. This year, the Missouri General Assembly passed a misleading measure that could actually make it harder for us to hold our politicians accountable. You’ll find this measure on your November ballot claiming it will prevent noncitizens from voting — even though it’s been illegal for a century. It’s an unnecessary and misleading proposal, but if Missourians don’t read the fine print, it could very well pass — based on a lie.

This misleading wording hides the essence of the amendment: undermining local control by attacking your freedom to choose what kind of elections you want in your city or county.

Most governments use an outdated electoral system that is much less representative than the one you use in everyday life. Politicians like this because it makes it harder to hold them to account. But more and more governments have adopted electoral systems that make politicians more accountable. One of the simplest examples is the so-called “pick-all-you-like” or approval voting: when voters go to the polls, they can choose any number of candidates they support, rather than having to choose one option.

It’s how we all make our daily decisions. If you want to plan a dinner with your family, maybe say you’re free on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, not just one day a week. Choosing all the options you’re happy with helps people work together rather than just going out for dinner on Sunday, because a small minority of 37% chose that, while 63% were split between Friday and Saturday.

In approval elections, politicians are also directly accountable to the people. As Missouri business leader and Square co-founder Jim McKelvey says, in approval elections, politicians “are rewarded for acting as collaborative problem solvers. Because voters can choose more than one candidate, politicians are motivated to engage the entire electorate, not just the small faction they previously had to win over.”

The success of approval voting is also backed by evidence. Both the American Mathematical Society and the American Statistical Association use approval voting to elect their own leaders. Here in Missouri in particular, approval voting has helped find solutions to difficult problems. The 2023 St. Louis City Council election in the 9th District pitted two incumbents against neighborhood leader and first-time candidate Michael Browning in a combined district. While the incumbents took different positions on the race’s main issue, development policy, Browning represented a bridge between the two. One incumbent favored public subsidies for private developers that some thought were too generous, while the other had delayed development that many St. Louis residents believed was beneficial. Browning’s development plan, which found common ground among developers, neighborhoods and the city, led to his victory. And approval voting played a key role.

With a traditional pick-one voting system, many voters often feel like they have to choose between existing politicians, excluding political newcomers and leading to a more polarized outcome. In this St. Louis race, approval voting allowed voters who may have been loyal to one of the incumbents to also voice their support for Browning, leading to a more unified and representative outcome.

Unfortunately, the legislature’s gimmick measure would deprive you of the opportunity to hold politicians accountable in November by concealing what is really on the ballot. It is an insidious attack on local control. It shifts power away from the people of Missouri, who should not have to look through gimmicks to make the choices they want in the voting booth. Because of the measure’s insidious baseline, the results this November are unlikely to be representative of Missourians’ actual views on voting systems.

It’s important to recognize that Missourians may support approval or ranked choice voting (which are similar but different), but this measure deliberately tries to prove otherwise by watering it down. If you want to hold politicians accountable through better elections, then when you vote, remember that this gimmick measure is an attempt to take away your freedom.

Benjamin D. Singer is CEO of Show Me Integrity, Missouri’s national award-winning political reform organization. The organization’s board is comprised of Republicans, Democrats and independents committed to more effective, ethical government. For more information, visit www.showmeintegrity.org