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Early voting in Missouri begins today [ [link removed] ]! If you live elsewhere, here’s a resource to locate where you can vote early [ [link removed] ].
With the election two weeks away, if you’re interested in supporting the candidates and causes I wrote about [ [link removed] ] last time, here’s a link you can use to donate [ [link removed] ].
To the extent that press coverage extends past the marquee races and gets to ballot measures, most of that energy is focused on the 10 states where abortion access is directly on the ballot [ [link removed] ]. That includes Missouri, which I wrote about a few weeks ago [ [link removed] ].
But there’s been little press coverage of a different set of ballot measures in seven states [ [link removed] ]—three Republican-leaning states, including Missouri; two swing states; and two Democratic-leaning states. Each relates to open primaries [ [link removed] ] and/or ranked-choice voting [ [link removed] ].
Those reforms won’t fix everything, but they will help end the partisan rancor that Americans are desperate to stop [ [link removed] ]. They’re worthy of your support, because all of us are dissatisfied with the people we’re electing.
This is a path to electing better people, and to electing people better.
Please forward this to friends who live in Missouri or in one of the other states where open primaries and/or ranked-choice voting are on the ballot—Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, or Oregon.
If you live in Missouri, vote No on Amendment 7, which would preemptively ban these reforms. More below. You can also read my thoughts on Missouri’s Amendment 2 (Vote No) [ [link removed] ] and Amendment 3 (Vote Yes) [ [link removed] ].
The way we elect people is really dumb
Denny Hoskins [ [link removed] ] will be Missouri’s next Secretary of State.
I wish that weren’t the case, because party affiliation aside, he’s nuts. There are competent Republicans out there, but he isn’t one of them. I’m going to vote for Democratic nominee Barbara Phifer [ [link removed] ]. But Missouri is a red state, and she’s going to lose.
Secretary of State races are important, because they administer elections. Denny is probably going to do that very badly. But he’s going to be our next Secretary of State anyway.
Why?
There were eight candidates in the Republican primary for Secretary of State [ [link removed] ], and in states like Missouri—as I’ve written about before [ [link removed] ]—whoever wins the Republican primary is the de-facto winner of the general election. And Denny will be the Secretary of State because he won a crowded primary with less than 25% of the vote:
As of 2022, Missouri had about 4.3 million registered voters [ [link removed] ]. So with that in mind, here’s a quick run-down of the election that got Denny Hoskins, who wants to run Missouri’s elections by [checks notes] removing voting machines [ [link removed] ] and who peddles baseless conspiracy theories just for kicks [ [link removed] ], elected as Missouri’s next Secretary of State:
15% of Missouri’s registered voters participated in this Republican primary election.
75.6% of people voted against him, which means that all of 3.4% of Missouri’s registered voters supported him in the primary.
Therefore, he’ll be our Secretary of State next year.
This is an insane way to choose our elected officials. We have to do better.
When you look at data like this, it’s no surprise that Americans overwhelmingly agree that democracy isn’t working the way that it should be:
Only 28% of Americans are satisfied with the way that democracy is working [ [link removed] ]—38% of Democrats, and 17% of Republicans.
Only 22% of Americans trust the government [ [link removed] ], down from 77% at its peak 60 years ago.
Open primaries and ranked-choice voting allow for more voters to participate in elections that matter, and it helps us elect people whose views are more likely to represent the views of their constituents.
How do open primaries work?
In most states, you can pick a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot. If you’re a committed Democrat in a Republican-leaning state, or vice versa, that usually means you basically have no say in determining who eventually gets elected [ [link removed] ].
With this reform, everyone—Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians, Greens, whoever—all run in the same open, all-candidate primary [ [link removed] ], rather than separate primaries. Voters get to pick their top choice, and the top vote-getters in this system—four or five, depending on the state—move onto the general election.
Ranked-choice voting is then used in the general election. Below are the reasons why that matters.
How does ranked-choice voting work, and why does it matter?
Here’s what ranked-choice voting is designed to accomplish:
Candidates have an incentive to appeal to as many voters as possible. That’s a good thing!
Independents can participate in the process. 43% of Americans consider themselves independents [ [link removed] ], compared to 27% who consider themselves Democrats and 27% who consider themselves Republicans.
Americans want more options besides just Democrats and Republicans [ [link removed] ], and this creates a viable path to more robust choices.
The idea is that someone can’t win an election with a mere plurality [ [link removed] ], but rather with a majority of 50% + 1 vote. Here’s an illustration of how it works [ [link removed] ]:
The effect of this is that people running for office have an incentive to appeal to as many voters as possible. And voters can vote their conscience—for independents and for third parties, for example—without feeling like they’re wasting their vote.
Political parties in power don’t support open primaries and ranked-choice voting. That’s why you should support it.
Idaho is a Republican state, and Idaho’s Proposition 1 [ [link removed] ] is opposed by their Republican governor and the chair of their state Republican party. In Nevada, where most of the state-wide elected officials are Democrats [ [link removed] ], Democrats are opposed to Nevada’s Question 3 [ [link removed] ].
They’re opposed because open primaries and ranked-choice voting weaken the power of established political parties. That’s also a good thing. In a world where so many Americans are dissatisfied with both political parties [ [link removed] ], reforms that weaken the ironclad rule of one political party should be celebrated.
That may be bad for elected officials looking to hold onto their jobs, but it’s good for voters, good for competition, and good for democracy. And competition is healthy and necessary for democracy to thrive [ [link removed] ].
By the way, in the states where ranked-choice voting is already happening—in Maine and in Alaska—this is working the way that it’s supposed to.
Maine [ [link removed] ], a Democratic-leaning state, has a Democratic Governor, an Independent Senator, a Republican Senator, and two Democratic members of the House—including Jared Golden, who’s probably the most conservative Democrat in the House caucus.
Alaska [ [link removed] ], a Republican-leaning state, has a Republican governor, two Republican Senators—one of whom, Lisa Murkowski, is probably most liberal member of the Senate Republican caucus—and a Democratic member of the House.
In short, their elected officials mirror the people who live in Maine and Alaska, which presumably is what we want.
The key argument against ranked-choice voting dismissively assumes voters are idiots
There’s a word that keeps coming up in the arguments against ranked-choice voting. That word? “Complex.” Take these two examples:
From a Democratic-leaning group in Nevada [ [link removed] ]: “Ranked choice vote ballots are…an overly complex and burdensome process.”
From a Republican State Rep. in Idaho [ [link removed] ]: “Do not sign this complex petition with ulterior motives.”
The problem with this? It’s not true.
We rank things in our lives all the time. And asking voters to rank which of four candidates they like most? Voters are capable of doing that, and it’s a nonsense argument that it’s somehow “too complex” to ask voters to have ranked preferences.
In Alaska, after their first-ever ranked-choice voting election, 85% of voters described the process of ranking candidates as simple [ [link removed] ], and 95% said they received clear instructions.
Voter turnout is [ [link removed] ]higher [ [link removed] ] in elections that deploy ranked-choice voting. If it really were so complex, that wouldn’t be the case.
Where ranked-choice voting is on the ballot
Alaska [ [link removed] ] (a Republican-leaning state), where a potential repeal is on the ballot.
Arizona [ [link removed] ] (a swing state)
Colorado [ [link removed] ] (a Democratic-leaning state)
Idaho [ [link removed] ] (a Republican-leaning state)
Missouri [ [link removed] ] (a Republican-leaning state), where a potential ban is on the ballot.
Nevada [ [link removed] ] (a swing state)
Oregon [ [link removed] ] (a Democratic-leaning state)
Politically, it’s a broad range of states. Wanting better and less divisive elections is not a partisan issue.
Amendment 7 in Missouri
Missouri’s Amendment 7 is peculiar in that it doesn’t really do anything:
It bans non-citizens from voting in Missouri elections, which is already illegal.
It bans ranked-choice voting, which isn’t happening anywhere in Missouri anyway.
If Missourians want ranked-choice voting, we’d have to affirmatively vote for it as a ballot measure in a future election.
It’s not the most important amendment on Missouri’s ballot this cycle. Nonetheless: you should vote against Amendment 7. Send a clear signal that you don’t support this kind of performative politics. And in the meantime, we can hope that other states—Republican, Democratic, and swing—will show us the way.
Are open primaries and ranked-choice voting perfect? Will they solve everything? No, most certainly not. Are there better ways that we could be electing people? Maybe.
But in states across the U.S., this is the option that voters have. And it’s a pretty great one.
Feel free to share this post with someone who might find it interesting. And if you don’t live in Missouri, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, or Oregon, share this post with someone who does. (If you’re reading this email because someone sent it to you, please consider subscribing [ [link removed] ].)

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