- cross-posted to:
- missouri@midwest.social
- usa@midwest.social
- politics@lemmy.ml
If this counts as advertising, just let me know and I’ll take down the post.
I’m collecting donations to fund a referendum campaign to switch Missouri to Freedom Voting (AKA Approval Voting). This is being organized by Missouri Agrees and the donations are being facilitated by the Action Network and Show Me Integrity. Link to donate here.
We’re aiming for $1.2 million by Saturday July 1st and this is an all-or-nothing affair. If we meet our funding goal, the signature campaign for the reference goes ahead. If we don’t, everyone gets their money back. Now here’s the good news, any of the fundraisers up to Molly’s fundraiser will get you a 3:1 power multiplier. For every dollar you donate their in the link they donate a dollar AND an anonymous third person will donate one too.
Now at this point you might be wondering, what the heck is Freedom Voting anyway? Great question, I’m glad you asked. Here we go:
- Vote for everyone you like.
- Most votes wins.
- That’s it.
Why is it called Freedom Voting? Well, because it gives you the freedom to vote for everyone you like, instead of having to choose only one. You can no longer waste your vote on a minor candidate, because voting for them doesn’t stop you from voting for anyone else. It’s also called Approval Voting because the fundamental question is “do you approve of this candidate or not?”
Of course, it fixes loads of problems with our current system. No more spoilers, fewer invalid ballots, representative results both in theory and real life, and it’s always safe to vote for your favorite, no matter what. Simply put, people love it.
If you guys have any questions just let me know, I’m happy to chat!
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Is the aim to make this happen for all elections in which Missourians vote, or just for elections of state and local offices or what?
Also, are there other states that have done this? It looks like Fargo and St. Louis do approval voting (or at least a variation of it) but if this happened it would make Missouri the first state to do this, yes? (Though, it looks like Maine and Alaska use some form of ranked choice voting.)
This all looks great whatever the case. It would be awesome to see this happen.
It would change every election that Missouri folks vote in, no matter what kind. The process would be by state constitutional amendment through referendum. You can take a look at the plain-English version of the amendment proposal here, by clicking the link inside. I didn’t want to link directly to it because for some reason they have the bill inside a PDF.
You’re correct on your research about other alternative voting systems in the US. Missouri would be the first. Missouri would also be the first to change all elections to an alternative system, which would be a big win. Maine still uses “choose one” for state offices and Alaska still uses “choose one” for primaries. Since Missouri is going for a constitutional amendment, they can go for the whole hog without any issue.
Not in the US so can’t participate, but I really love this, it’s the only solution to the bipartisan conundrum. Although “Freedom” in the name triggered me lmao, I almost closed it thinking it was a MAGA thing before looking more closely.
Hah, I know! The biggest drawback is that Approval/Freedom Voting doesn’t have a good name! I would have named it Binary Voting, since you can think of it as voting yes/no on every candidate, but even then I’m not sure how good a name that is.
But hell, if naming it 🦅Freedom Voting🦅 is what gets us voting reform? I’m all for it.
Personally, I don’t think any voting system is enough to break the duopoly, you need to have multi-seat and/or proportional representation, but it’s a good first step. Approval is great for single-winner elections and it’s very easy to tweak for multi-winner and proportional elections, so it’s a no-brainer when you’re thinking multiple steps ahead.
I love calling it freedom voting because this means that we can claim that any opponents are against “freedom and voting.”
Republicans have done this for decades using “freedom,” “Patriotism,” and other terms. They can try to pass a bill to allow straight white Christians to discriminate against anyone they want and will call it the “Increasing Freedom Bill.” Then, they’ll say that any Democrats voting against it obviously hate freedom.
Time to give them a little of their own medicine.
Good luck with this! I think approval voting is the bees knees! My locality just passed ranked voting, which is an improvement but I would really have preferred approval voting instead.
Yeah, anything is better than “choose one,” but you should really fix it right the first time, you know? Plus, Approval is more adaptable to alternate representation systems, like proportional or multi seat elections.
I’m going to be so stoked if we hit our funding goal, getting Approval into a state constitution would be HUGE.
I’ll admit that I personally like ranked choice voting more because it lets you see how many people choose Candidate A as #1, #2, etc. Still, I get that this can be complicated for some voters and we want to make things as easy as possible for them.
Whether a place goes ranked choice or approval, they’re still doing better than if they stayed with First Past The Post.
Not in MO myself but I absolutely support this initiative!
You can donate across state lines, but I understand if you’re not comfortable doing that. Personally I think donating to campaigns outside of your state really ought to be illegal, but it’s not, so every political campaign solicits nationally. It’s one of those things where you’re essentially forced to do it because everyone else does. Not doing it is just handing your competition and advantage they’ll happily take. I think it’s total bullshit, but the people who write the laws got into power using nationally funded campaigns so…
FYI I’m seeing the post as having 5 comments but I can only see 1, so I apologize if you made a comment and I don’t reply. I checked my language settings but everything is enabled including undermined.
Just a reminder, today is the last day!!