According to this story, Voter Choice Massachusetts plans to put a statewide initiative on the 2020 ballot, asking the voters if they want to convert federal and state elections to Ranked Choice Voting. Massachusetts has the easiest statewide initiative process of any state; the petition needs signatures equal to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote.
IF gerrymanders continue —
then RCV is another JUNK *reform*.
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PR and Appv and TOTSOP.
CONDORCET = RCV DONE RIGHT.
https://www.voterchoicema.org/
Now RWB standard deception website.
While Massachusetts has a relatively low signature requirement for initiatives in ratio to population, a couple of things that make it difficult are that a) they do not allow much time for signature gathering (about two months from September-November in the odd year, then the petition goes to the legislature, where the legislature can either pass it or do nothing, and if the legislature does not pass it after a few months, which is what the legislature generally does, there is a second round of petitioning from May-June of the even year), and b) the petition pages have to be separated by city/town (of which I believe Massachusetts has 359 of them), and then turned in to each city/town election clerk’s office, who check the validity of the petition signatures, and then the proponent of the petition has to get the petitions from the city/town election clerk offices, and deliver them to the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s/Commonwealth’s office. So Massachusetts is more difficult than one would realize if they just look at the signature requirement.
@ Andy:
Another issue with the initiative in Massachusetts is that any proposal for a Constitutional amendment requires a recorded vote in the General Court (state legislature). If no recorded vote is taken, the initiative goes on perpetual hold until the legislature votes on it. It’s typical for the Senate President, who presides over the required joint session, to simply not hold a recorded vote for any initiative amendment.
I have been following initiatives and referendums around the country since 2000, and I have not heard of any constitutional amendments initiatives qualifying for the Massachusetts ballot via petition, only statute initiatives. I have also not heard of any referendums qualifying for the Massachusetts ballot via petition.
Massachusetts only has statewide initiatives for state laws, not for state constitutional amendments. But that’s OK. The ranked choice voting proposed statute doesn’t depend on changing anything in the Massachusetts Constitution.
I could have sworn that Massachusetts did have an initiative petition process for constitutional amendments. I know they have one for referendums via petition, although I have not heard of one qualifying there since I have been following this stuff. I will have to look into this more.
1780 Mass Const — with a mere 120 Amdts
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Massachusetts_(1780)
Article XLVIII Voter petitions for Const Amdts and laws
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zillion amdts regarding gerrymander districts
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PR and AppV and TOTSOP
http://www.iandrinstitute.org/states.cfm
18 States with voter petits for STATE Const Amdts
PR and AppV and TOTSOP
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LAST HOPE before Civil WAR II happens due to ANTI-Democracy killer monarchs/oligarchs.