JEFFERSON CITY — Two ºüÀêÊÓƵ residents are asking a judge to toss out the ballot language on a proposed constitutional amendment designed to bar ranked choice voting.
In a lawsuit filed in Cole County Circuit Court, Liz de Laperouse and Eric Bronner said the initiative approved by the Republican-controlled House and Senate earlier this year is flawed and should be corrected.
“The erroneous and biased summary statement and fair ballot language should be vacated and replaced with correct language that provides voters with true and impartial information about the amendment,†the lawsuit notes.
Along with House Speaker Dean Plocher and Senate President Caleb Rowden, the suit names Sen. Ben Brown, of Washington, who sponsored the bill, and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft as defendants.
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The civil suit was filed July 10, a day after the measure was placed on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
The proposed constitutional change is the latest in a wave of red states seeking to prohibit the alternative vote counting method. Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi earlier this year enacted laws barring the practice, calling it confusing and nontraditional.
Instead of a winner-take-all approach, ranked choice allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. A candidate wins outright if they receive a majority of the first-place votes.
If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate have their votes redistributed to the candidate they ranked second on their ballots. The process continues until a candidate has secured a majority of the vote.
The measure exempts nonpartisan elections in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, which instituted an “approval voting†system first used in the 2021 municipal elections.
Under the ºüÀêÊÓƵ system, voters are allowed to vote for as many candidates as they approve of, and the top two-candidates advance to a run-off election.
The lawsuit takes issue with the ballot summary, which claims the proposal would make the state constitution consistent with state law by only allowing citizens of the United States to vote.
“This claim is unfair and insufficient for several reasons ... because it is already the law that noncitizens cannot vote,†the suit says.
The lawsuit also said the General Assembly’s ballot language “is neither true nor impartial.â€
“It uses language that is intentionally argumentative and likely to create prejudice for the proposed measure,†the lawsuit notes.
During lengthy debate during the spring legislative session, Democrats contended the citizenship language was added by Republicans to trick voters into approving it as part of their push to make immigration a major issue in the election.