by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current

A proposed election reform that most in the political establishment seem to oppose — but that voters two years ago supported — is back on the ballot for final approval.

Question 3 asks Nevadans to adopt an open primary, ranked choice voting system. It is a citizen-driven proposed state constitutional amendment, which means it must be approved twice by voters in subsequent general elections before going into effect. Nevadans passed Question 3 in 2022 with 53% in support and 47% opposed.

If it passes this year, the new system would have to be in place for the 2026 elections. It would apply to U.S. Congressional races, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, state controller, attorney general, and state legislators. It would not apply to presidential races nor would it change the down ballot races, like those for school board, county commission or city council.

Nevada currently has a closed primary system, meaning you must be registered as a Democrat or Republican to participate. It’s a system that disenfranchises the growing number of voters registered as nonpartisans or to minor parties, says Mike Draper, the spokesperson for Vote Yes on 3.

Question 3 proposes moving to an open primary/ranked choice voting system. All candidates, regardless of political party, would appear on the primary ballot. Voters would select one candidate during the primary, and the top five finishers advance to the general election. Then, in the general election, voters would rank the candidates in order of preference.

If one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, that person is declared the winner. If nobody receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are transferred to the candidates voters selected as their second choice.

That process repeats until one candidate receives more than 50%.

Voters do not have to rank all of the candidates. Voters can select just one, or just two out of five.

Opponents of Question 3 argue the process is confusing, particularly to low-information voters. Draper and other proponents disagree, saying people prioritize and rank things on a day-to-day basis.

“There are a million ways to get to my office,” he said. “I pick the fastest. If there’s construction, I’d pick the second choice. Traffic? Third choice.”

The rise of nonpartisans

Nonpartisan voters make up a third of active registered voters in Nevada, and if they were a political party, they would be the state’s largest. According to the Secretary of State’s Office, as of September, 34% of active registered voters are nonpartisan, 30% are Democrats, 29% are Republicans and 7% are registered to minor parties.

But under the current closed primary system, the approximately 4 out of 10 Nevada voters who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans are unable to participate in partisan races unless they register to one of the two major political parties, which they may not want to do for a variety of reasons.

“Why in a democracy should we be forced to change our registration?” asks Draper.

Nonpartisans are registered that way for a reason, he argues, often because they believe neither party truly represents their interests.

Some voters may want to back a Democrat in a congressional primary and a Republican in a gubernatorial primary. Others might live in a district where their political party is severely outnumbered by the other party, so they’d like to weigh in on the candidates of the party they are not registered to.

“It cannot be ignored that these voters pay for taxpayer-funded elections” that they cannot participate in, adds Draper.

Opponents have publicly criticized the Vote Yes on 3 campaign of downplaying the ranked choice component of their ballot measure and focusing only on the open primary component.

Kerry Durmick, the Nevada director of All Voting Is Local, which opposes the ballot measure, is afraid voters may not understand what they are voting for in Question 3.

Durmick acknowledges that some Nevadas, particularly nonpartisans, feel disenfranchised by the current system, but says she believes “there is a better reform than ranked choice voting.”

“Why did they not just put forth an open primary ballot measure?” she asks.

Nevada state lawmakers have in recent years passed legislation expanding voter access, including adopting automatic voter registration and universal mail ballots. But they have not seriously considered opening up primaries.

In 2021, then-state Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, a Republican, sponsored an open primaries bill, but it did not receive a hearing in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. A year before that, Kieckhefer filed with the SOS paperwork proposing a ballot measure to open the state’s primaries, but no signatures were ever submitted to the state for verification.

Draper says Nevada’s closed primary is “the most egregious” of the problems Question 3 hopes to fix but is not the sole focus of their campaign: “The point is to create a system where (candidates) are incentivized to talk, to work together. We have the potential for civil debate and discussion, civil campaigns.”

Candidates would theoretically need to court second choice votes, which means they may be less prone to running attack ads that emphasize how bad their opponents are instead of what they bring to the table, if elected.

The reign of kingmaking

Both the Nevada State Democratic Party and the Nevada State Republican Party vehemently oppose Question 3. The former unsuccessfully challenged the ballot measure in court and has sent mailers to voters characterizing ranked choice as confusing and disenfranchising to voters.

The Nevada Democrats declined the Current’s request for an interview but sent a statement, which read, in part: “Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much these days, but Nevada leaders from both parties oppose ranked-choice voting.”

Question 3 supporters believe the political party’s opposition is more motivated by self interest than a true belief that ranking candidates in order of preference is confusing. They point to the fact that the Nevada Democrats’ 2020 caucus used ranked choice voting. (The party abandoned that system in favor of a traditional presidential primary for 2024.)

“It’s a reflection of what this initiative does,” says Draper, the spokesperson for Vote Yes on 3. “Part of the point of the initiative is to give people more of a voice, to return the power to the people.”

“The political parties are going to lose power,” agrees Sondra Cosgrove, a history professor who was part of the group that helped bring the ballot measure to Nevada in 2022. “In closed primaries, they have the ability to decide who the candidate is and who makes it to the general election ballot. They can elect people through a 19% turnout primary.”

Only a handful of districts in the Nevada State Legislature are considered competitive, Cosgrove points out. The majority of legislative districts are considered reliably safe for Republicans or Democrats. That means the primary, not the general, is often the competitive race that decides who will represent the district.

The proposed voting system would allow all voters to be involved in both the primary and general elections, and it would shift the competitiveness to the general election by allowing members of the same party to run against one another. A moderate who might struggle against a far-right candidate in a Republican primary could appeal to nonpartisans and gain support of Democrats, for example. Candidates who are challenging caucus-backed choices in either party could find more support in the broader, general electorate than the smaller primary where voters are more bought into the party establishment.

“Candidates need to be beholden not to the party base or the party’s donor base,” said Cosgrove.

Cosgrove points to U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska, who was elected via a process nearly identical to that being proposed in Nevada. Peltola was not the party’s first choice when the congressional seat unexpectedly opened up following the death of the sitting congressman, Cosgrove said, but she was able to run because of the new election system and won people over by reaching across the aisle. A ballot for Alaska’s 2022 general election. Alaska in 2020 adopted a voting system similar to the one now proposed in Nevada. (Photo: James Brooks / Alaska Beacon)

A new direction, or an experiment?

Question 3 opponents say they are also concerned about the timeline for implementation and the lack of additional funding for voter education to support such a consequential change to the state’s election system.

If passed, the Nevada State Legislature would have until July 2025 to adopt any legislation needed to implement the open primary/ranked choice voting system, which would be used in June 2026. That is, in the often slow-moving world of state government, not a long period of time.

“We are already in a place where our elections are under an extreme amount of pressure,” says Durmick of All Voting Is Local.

If it goes poorly, repealing the open primary/ranked choice voting system could not be instantaneous. It would require another constitutional amendment, which typically takes years to pass, and could further erode trust in elections.

“The State of Nevada has not prioritized voter education funding,” says Durmick. “This year, we’ve only spent $1 million on voter education, which is very low. Because of that, voter education falls on organizations, like the state parties, like nonprofits. They have the burden of voter education.”

The Guinn Center in 2023 conducted a survey and found only 35% could correctly identify that Nevada has closed or partisan primaries; 65% believed the state had open primaries. The same survey asked people whether Nevada uses ranked-choice voting or simple majority voting: 71% correctly identified that the state currently uses simple-majority voting and 29% incorrectly thought the state already had ranked-choice voting.

“We already have an uphill battle,” Durmick continued. “I think this will drive turnout down because we’ll have to make up so much voter education.”

Vote Yes on 3 see that argument as fear-mongering.

“We see this with every ballot initiative that scares people,” rebuts Draper, the measure’s spokesperson. “Change is scary, so let’s tell everyone there’s going to be catastrophic outcomes. Certainly it is an evolved system, but it is not untested.”

Alaska and Maine both use the open primary/ranked choice voting system, as do dozens of municipalities across the country.

If adopted by voters, Nevada could become the most populous state to use the system statewide. Maine’s population is 1.3 million and Alaska’s is less than a million, compared to Nevada’s 3.1 million. But Nevada could also become the second most populous state to adopt the system because Colorado voters are considering a similar ballot measure this year. (So, too, are Idahoans, though lawmakers have already said they may immediately repeal or amend it if passed.)

Massachusetts voters in 2020 rejected a ranked choice voting question there. 

Ten states — Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Kentucky, Montana, Mississippi Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee — have banned ranked choice voting for some or all elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Almost all of those bans have been enacted in the last two years.

“Nevadans take pride in being innovators and mavericks and being different,” says Draper. “Yet in this case, we say, ‘Let’s not be one of the leaders’? We’re a well documented purple state. Who better to implement this than us?”

The political parties will be forced to evolve with the new system, he added.

Australia has been using ranked choice voting — they call it preferential voting — for their state and federal races since 1919.

Funding

Nevada Voters First, the political action committee setup to qualify and support the ballot measure during its first appearance before voters, raised $19 million in 2022. Almost all of it was from wealthy donors with few ties to Nevada, a point opponents like the Nevada Democrats have used to label Question 3 as “bankrolled by billionaires.”

Donations included:

$5 million from Katherine Gehl, who founded the nonpartisan Institute for Political Innovation. Gehl, whose family’s food manufacturing business made her a millionaire, has described herself as “politically homeless.”$3 million from Kenneth Griffin, a hedge fund CEO billionaire and top GOP mega donor.$2.5 million from Kathryn Murdoch, the daughter-in-law of conservative billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch has described herself as a “radical centrist” and has primarily donated to Democrats.

Question 3 did get some local financial support. Wynn Resorts, Strategic Horizons (a PAC affiliated with Clark County Education Association), and the Nevada Association of Realtors each gave $250,000 in 2022.

Vote Yes on 3 PAC, which was setup earlier this year to support passage, reported raising $5.7 million between April and June of this year. The majority of that money came from two national groups who fund election reform efforts across the country: Article IV and Unite America.

Wynn Resorts again contributed $250,000.

A PAC was registered to oppose Question 3 but according to its most recent campaign finance reports has not raised money. At least one group, Nevada Democrats, has paid for mailers to be sent to voters.

Durmick notes that All Voting Is Local is opposed to the ballot measure but not behind any of the anti-3 ads.

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected]. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and X.