MISSOULA — Anyone who has spent any amount of time walking just about anywhere in Missoula has probably seen — or been stopped by — people armed with clipboards trying to get your signature.
They’re trying to get signatures to get two amendments to the Montana constitution up for a vote in November, ones that would change how we elect our government officials.
“For a long time, there were like pro, pro-life Democrats and they were like, moderate pro-environmental Republicans. And so these parties were pretty diverse and, in the last couple of years we've really seen an effort to kind of create a more rigid set of what the rules are, what, what a good Republican is or what a good Democrat is," said University of Montana professor and media analyst Lee Banville.
Ballot measures CI-126 and CI-127 aim to try and remedy this pull to the right and the left. The measures are attempting to do this through two main things.
The first is open primaries. A primary is the first stage of determining who will show up in the general election in November. Montana currently has a partisan open primary, meaning that a voter can choose to vote Republican or Democrat, not both. With the proposed measures, that would change.
CI-126 is straightforward enough. Everyone votes for all candidates regardless of political party and then the top four candidates then advance to the general.
CI-127 is a bit more nuanced. It basically requires that to win a candidate has to get at least 50% of the vote. Lee Banville explained.
“To get elected, you have to hit 50%. If you don't hit 50%, you're not the winner yet. And we have to have a run-off until somebody gets to that 50% threshold because otherwise, they're not representing a majority of the district," Banville noted.
Opponents of the ballot measures mainly focus on CI-127, stating that it will cause runoff elections across the state because it is too difficult to obtain 50% of the vote right away.
Advocates argue that it could help lower the temperature in Montana’s current politics, however.
“This is a group of Montanans trying to improve our government and our outcomes. And we think it’s time for fundamental change and the people we talk to across the state agree," said Frank Garner a board member of Montanans for Election Reform, the the group that is trying to get this ballot initiative passed.
The question that remains is will this actually change anything? Does it have the means to bring down polarization and provide more moderate candidates?
“It is sort of...an effort to reach beyond the sort of hardcore party faithful on both sides and sort of say, like, you know, we need to do something, to try and, and make the, you know, to make the politics less sort of heated and, and polarized," Banville said. "Will voters see it that way and will it actually do that? That's where we, we don't know yet.”
It is important to note that to make it to the November ballot, Montanans for Election Reform needs to obtain signatures from at least 10% of the eligible voter base in each of the 40 legislative districts.
