Montana News
How we vote is on the ballot: Here's what the proposed changes would mean
[music] Welcome to The Big Why, a series from Montana Public Radio where we find out what we can discover together. I'm your host, Austin Amestoy. This is a show about listener-powered reporting. We'll answer questions large or small about anything under the big sky. By Montanans, for Montana, this is The Big Why. Today's State House reporter Shaley Rager is here to talk us through a pair of constitutional initiatives Montanans will vote on in November. Hello, Shaley. Hey, Austin. Shaley, we have so much ground to cover before we get to Election Day in a couple of months. Right. Well, today we're going to cover a couple of proposals Montanans will vote on this year that would change how the state runs its future elections. You might have come across people gathering signatures for those proposals last spring, Austin. Oh, yes. It was hard to go a few feet in Missoula without running into them. So, absolutely. And our listener, Sue Spanki, lives in Missoula, she ran into them too. She heard their standards feel about the measures. I talked to several of the people carrying the petition trying to find out what would happen. No one seemed to know. And even in the months since, she hasn't learned much more. So, I'd like to know what will actually happen and will it be an improvement on what happens now? Okay, then, Shaley, let's start from the top. What kind of changes in election law are we talking about? So, what if the measures would change our primary election system or the way that we whittle down candidates to advance one nominee from each political party to the general election? That measure calls for an open primary system where all candidates in a race would compete in one primary. The top four vote getters, regardless of party, advance. That proposal is known as C.I. 126. Okay, and what's the second measure? C.I. 127. And that would require top candidates to earn more than 50% of the vote to win a general election. So, this would apply to November elections when we decide which candidates actually get to take office. Both measures would amend Montana's Constitution to put those changes in place. And both would apply to state legislative races, federal races, and statewide races like for governor. Right, so we have one measure targeting the primary election system, one targeting the general election, but Shaley, let's get to our listeners question then. How do they work in practice? The first proposal is pretty simple. For every political race, there would be just one primary to whittle things down to the top contenders. If the four most popular candidates are all Republicans or all Democrats, or even nonpartisan entirely, that doesn't matter. They still move on to the main event in November. The second proposal is less straightforward, and that's by design. How so? So that measure would require that candidates earn more than 50% of the vote to win. And sometimes that doesn't happen, right? When third-party candidates are in a race, sometimes the winner earns more votes than anybody else, but still tallies less than 50% of the vote total. So if this proposal were to pass and no candidate earns a simple majority in the race outright, Shaley, how do we determine a winner? The measure leaves those details up to the state legislature, so our lawmakers will be tasked with answering that question if the measure passes. I talked with a researcher, Jeanette Lee, who studies democracy for the Think Tank Siteline Institute. She says lawmakers have options. There are basically as many election systems as there are people who care to propose them. But there are only a couple of established majority vote systems in practice right now. For example, Georgia holds runoff elections for the top two vote getters when necessary. Alaska began using ranked choice voting in 2022 to find majority winners. The backers of Montana's measures say they like the results Alaska's system produced, so I think it's worth diving into. Yeah, Shaley, ranked choice voting is kind of a hot-button topic in political circles right now. But explain to us how does it work exactly? In ranked choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference, first, second, third, and so on. If your first choice doesn't win, your ballot counts for your next choice. Ballots are counted in rounds, so if no candidate reaches over 50% of the vote in the first round, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the second round of counting begins, and so on until a candidate gets a majority of the vote. And how has that gone in Alaska? Well, it's only been in use for one election so far, but Lee dug into the results from that election, which used both in open primary and ranked choice voting in the general. She found that voter turnout increased for the primary, and more than half of those voters split their tickets among candidates from differing parties. Alaska has the largest share of registered independent voters in the country, so Lee says the results weren't totally surprising, but they show. We are not as polarized as our politicians. The way the national politics is trickled down into the states, those things really have shaped, I think, a government that is more polarized than the electorate it is representing. Do you think that's true in Montana, too? I don't have any hard data on that, but I've been talking to a ton of voters this election cycle, and one of the most consistent frustrations I've heard is from people who feel unhappy with their choices. They say they're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. Instead of a candidate, they really like. And that's true for Belgrade voter Nicole Kimball. We come away with an impression that we are either way over here on the left or way over here on the right. And I just don't think that that's the reality of the most of Americans. So how are supporters selling these two election measures? They say they combat political polarization. They say the systems give voters more control, more options, and force candidates to be responsive to a broader electorate. However, Montana State Representative Frank Garner is a Republican from Cowlespell and Chair of Montanans for Election Reform, which is the organization behind the measures. He says the state legislature used to have a more bipartisan nature, but polarization makes it hard to get work done today. One years ago, you could have, it seems, tougher conversations with people without losing them as friends, and I don't see it getting better right now without some kind of intervention and change in the way we do business. So those are the arguments from supporters, Shaylee, but what kind of opposition are these measures seeing? The Montana GOP opposes these measures, and their messaging really revolves around ranked choice voting specifically. But the party adopted a platform this summer saying they oppose ranked choice voting and related schemes to encompass the open primary system proposed. Senate Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick says he doesn't think the systems will serve voters. "It's going to be more chaotic, I think, in my view, and I think it really does favor people that spend more money." Fitzpatrick also says he doesn't think it'll make much of a difference in who wins elections. And actually, that's a point that researcher Lee made too. It won't equate to a monumentally different outcome in every race, but she says it makes some races more competitive in districts that are already toss-ups. And you know, I think it's interesting that if the majority vote measure passes, it'll go before what's likely to be a Republican majority legislator, Shaylee, so I suppose we'll have to wait and see how they approach that. But I have one last question for you here. What happens if one of these measures passes and the other doesn't? That's a good question, Austin, either measure can stand on its own. They don't both have to pass to work. Well, Shaylee, thank you so much for your reporting today. No problem, thank you, Austin. Now we want to know what makes you curious about Montana. This show is all about answering your questions, so send them to us at bigy.org. Find us wherever you get your podcasts and help others find the show by sharing it and leaving us a review. Let's see what we can discover together. (gentle music)