Senate Approves Resolution on Election Night to Ban Ranked Choice Voting

BY KOMLAVI ADISSEM

Missouri news network

JEFFERSON CITY − The Missouri Senate gave initial approval to a resolution Tuesday that would ban ranked choice voting in the state. If approved by the House, it would be sent to the ballot for voters to decide on later this year.

Senate joint resolution (SJR) 78, introduced by Sen. Ben Brown, R-Washington, would also ban noncitizens from voting in any elections within Missouri, including local and county elections. This is already law.

The resolution was approved on a voice vote after almost 45 minutes of negotiations between Brown and Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis.

May, along with Sen. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, raised concerns during the initial floor debate about the impacts of the resolution on the nonpartisan local elections held in St. Louis City and Kansas City.

“Let’s just say − I’m gonna just make up numbers − we may have 12 people running for mayor. They’re all on the ballot,” Razer said. “You vote for the one person you want to be mayor. And then the top two vote-getters go on a couple of months later to a runoff election ... between the top two vote-getters of that 12. Is this going to force us to change the way we vote for mayor and force us into partisan elections?”

“I don’t believe that this would restrict that,” Brown responded. “There’s no ranking of candidates and there’s one person, one vote.”

May raised similar concerns about the local elections in St. Louis City, pointing out that voters in the city had approved its nonpartisan “approval voting” system with 68% support.

“I think that what the people of St. Louis did for themselves, is what they did,” she added. “I can’t say if they’re better off or worse off, but I think they have a system in place that they like.”

May also noted that she had previously opposed the adoption of the unique voting system in St. Louis because it would “wake up the Republican Party in the city.”

May’s amendment made it so that the ban on ranked choice voting “does not apply to any nonpartisan municipal election held in a city that had an ordinance in effect as of November 5, 2024, that permits voters to cast more than a single vote for each issue or candidate on which such voter is eligible to vote.”

In his introduction, Brown said that the resolution is “designed to fortify our elections to make sure that every Missourian’s voice is heard and counted.”

“While rank choice voting may appear as modern solution electoral dilemmas, evidence and experience have illuminated a starkly different reality,” Brown said.

SJR 78 is one of a handful of resolutions making their way through the legislature in efforts to appear on the ballot later this year. Others include a proposal to raise the threshold to pass an initiative petition on the ballot and another that would downsize the House and change how term limits for state legislators are totaled.