Second Court Rewords Missouri Redistricting Ballot Amendment Language

Second Court Rewords Missouri Redistricting Ballot Amendment Language

A county circuit court judge ruled earlier last month that the wording of a ballot measure authored by the Republican legislature was “misleading” in an effort to “entice” voters into repealing an anti-gerrymandering reform measure approved by voters in 2018. This week a Missouri Appeals Court affirmed the lower court ruling that the original ballot language was misleading but it reworded the circuit court’s rewrite as well. You can read all three versions below. The circuit court replaced the ballot summary language for Amendment 3 to make clear that if the measure is approved, it would reverse the 2018 measure.The…
Read More
Cumulative Voting for School Board Ordered By Federal Court in Missouri

Cumulative Voting for School Board Ordered By Federal Court in Missouri

Missouri - Late last month a federal district court ended a two year challenge to the Ferguson-Florissant School District's use of at-large elections for its seven member school board.  The court ruled in August, that at-large elections for board members did violate section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.  The court's order requires the school district to use a cumulative voting system with staggered terms and off-cycle elections, preceded by a voter education program, much like the one described in the cumulative voting educational video below. https://youtu.be/L-n_D16bchM  
Read More
Anatomy of a Section 2 Lawsuit: Ferguson-Florissant School District

Anatomy of a Section 2 Lawsuit: Ferguson-Florissant School District

The Missouri State Conference of the NAACP filed a lawsuit against the Ferguson-Florissant School District this past December in a quest to discontinue the at-large elections of its seven member board and instead divide the school district into seven election districts from which each board member will be elected. Changing the method of election in this way is sure to dramatically change the composition of the board in favor of the African-American families in the district. Why? As it turns out, the Ferguson-Florissant School District’s demographics and political environment is indeed a microcosm of the sad state of race relations…
Read More