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Radio Active Magazine
A locally produced program where activist groups in the Kansas City area present interviews, commentary, editorials, and other thought provoking content on a weekly basis.
Elaine Stephen and Larry Bradley describe Ranked-Choice Voting and efforts to bring that to parts or all of Kansas and Missouri. Stephen is a leader in Rank the Vote Kansas. Bradley is a member of Better Ballot KC and a co-Founder of The Center Strikes Back, where he works to bring “Instant Runoff Voting and other voting reforms to elections in all fifty states.” They are joined by Radio Active Magazine regular Spencer Graves.
Ranked-choice voting, also called instant runoff voting, would make it easier for more centrist candidates to get elected. Our increasingly polarized partisan primaries too often select extreme candidates, which means that more centrist candidates with more bipartisan and nonpartisan appeal are eliminated in the general election. This contributes to legislative gridlock on issues that concern the voters. Meanwhile, big money interests too often get free rein on issues that benefit them at the expense of the public, hidden in plain sight, as the major media prefer not to provide information that might offend major advertisers.
Rank-choice voting would combine the primary and general elections, which means that voters only have to vote once, not twice. It also gives moderates in any party a greater chance to get elected. This also encourages candidates to moderate their rhetoric, hoping to become a second choice of voters who prefer other candidates.
Copyright 2023 Elaine Stephen, Larry Bradley, Spencer Graves: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license
