Ballot Initiative

Better Ballot KC collected 3,623 valid signatures for an initiative petition in the Spring of 2022. 

(copy of the petition can be found at this link:  Initiative Petition – Kansas City Missouri)

The city council had encouraged the initiative petition to show them voters wanted rank choice voting. BBKC contacted the city law department when researching how many signatures would it take since the city charter only specifies ordinance change petitions not charter changes. The person in the law department stated that charter changes and ordinance changes were the same, needed to collect 5% of the voters from last mayoral election.

On April 21, 2022 - this is the news shared with all of us who had spent time collecting signatures:

"Good news: the City Clerk told us our verified signatures are 3,623. We did it! We comfortably surpassed the 3,480 we were told we needed. 

Bad news: What we were told and relied upon turned out to be unreliable. The same city attorney that gave Rachel the figure of 5% of the voters in the last mayoral race decided that actually, Missouri law says it does need to be 10% after all - of all registered voters.  Around 40,000, plus buffer. Had this been the information given last July, then of course we would have decided on a different strategy to begin with."