JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri House gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a plan aimed at torpedoing a change in how state and local elections work.
Under legislation sponsored by Republican Rep. Ben Baker of Neosho, voters would be asked to ban ranked choice voting and approval voting, two different electoral systems that allow people to select more than one candidate for a public office.
It comes as a group is planning to introduce a ballot question for 2024 to usher in approval voting in Missouri.
The organization, Missouri Agrees, backs a system in which, if there are several candidates on the ballot, instead of having to vote for one of them, voters would get to vote for all the candidates they support.
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In the end, the candidate with the most votes would win.
Baker opposes that method, which is designed to eliminate extremists and highlight moderates, resulting in more cooperation and compromise in government.
“Voters are picking people that they like … and not really choosing a single candidate they want to win,†Baker said.
In addition, Baker said such a process could result in longer waits for winners to be announced.
“(Voters) don’t want slower results,†Baker said. “It takes a lot longer to tabulate the ballots.â€
Democrats said the proposed referendum was not needed.
“I guess I have a little more faith in voters,†said Rep. Robert Sauls, D-Kansas City.
Rep. Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City, said it would be a mistake to ignore the possibility of bringing more moderate politicians into the election system.
She said the current system has bred political extremism as Republicans have tried to run to the right of their opponents.
“It gives people a choice,†Aune said.
Under questioning, Baker said the proposal would affect local elections. ºüÀêÊÓƵ, for example, first began using a similar system in the 2021 city elections, with the two top candidates in the race for mayor — now-Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and Alderman Cara Spencer — advancing to a runoff election.
In 2021, identified 261 jurisdictions in the U.S. — ranging from the state of California to a Texas school district — that have adopted some voting method other than the standard single-winner, plurality system most American voters know.
The Missouri Agrees campaign follows a failed effort last year to place a ballot question for ranked-choice voting on the 2022 ballot.
The measure needs one more vote in the House before moving to the Senate for further debate.
The legislation is .