After restructuring, are supporters of ranked-choice voting in Nevada ready for 2024?

Filled with money from wealthy outside donors, Nevada Voters First waged an extensive media campaign in 2022 on behalf of Question 3, a ballot measure that would fundamentally change Nevada’s election system by allowing all voters to participate in primaries regardless of their party affiliation and to implement the ranking. choice voting in general elections.

The group, which also benefited from financial support from Realtors, a teachers union and the gaming industry, has led myriad digital and television advertisements and invested millions of dollars to support the proposal, which qualified for the ballot. That year, the bill passed with the support of about 53 percent of voters, despite opposition from prominent elected leaders from both major parties.

But as Question 3 returns to voters this year for the second and final time, the country has reported just one significant contribution while spending nearly $900,000 this cycle, more than four times what it collected. Supporters of the measure also say they haven’t seen much activity from the group over the past year and a half and were unfamiliar with its strategies this year.

Clues to the ballot measure’s future may lie in a quiet reorganization. As the PAC’s bank account ran dry, organizers registered a new PAC, Vote Yes on 3, Inc., with the Secretary of State’s office on March 15, and booked a nearly eight-figure ad buy ahead of the 2024 general elections.

“Question 3 had not yet been assigned to the initiative by the state when Nevada Voters First was created, so going forward, everything will be branded ‘Vote Yes on 3’ for the 2024 campaign,” declared the representatives of the new PAC. a declaration provided to The Nevada Independent.

In the statement, the representatives added that the high spending levels of the original Nevada Voters First PAC were for expenses incurred during the 2022 elections and that the new Vote Yes on 3 PAC will be the primary fundraising and campaign entity for the future.

Data from political ad tracking organization AdImpact shows the new PAC booked more than $9.4 million in ad buys in Las Vegas, Reno and on satellite from Sept. 10 through Election Day. However, pre-booking does not require the ad buyer to pay upfront and the size of the ad booking can change at any time up to the scheduled start date.

It’s unclear exactly how much funding the new PAC has, because Nevada law does not require PACs to report their cash flow. Unlike candidates for office, Nevada PACs can accept unlimited amounts of money from a single donor. It is common for pro-election issue groups to remain somewhat inactive in non-election years.

Jeremy Gelman, an associate professor of political science at UNR, said it’s possible that organizers are maneuvering behind the scenes to close the old PAC books before moving on to the new PAC.

“As long as donors have a legal spending vehicle to use, there is no real downside to switching to the new PAC,” Gelman said. “Moving to a new PAC at this point, assuming it is not a signal of discord among the core supporters of Question 3, does not constitute a major change in the way this advocacy campaign will take place over the next 6 months.”

Protect Your Vote Nevada, a PAC linked to Democrats and opposed to the initiative, has also not reported raising any money since the 2022 election. The group spent about $150,000 last year, after spent $2.2 million of the approximately $2.4 million raised in 2022.

“It barely passed in 2022, Nevadans are right to be skeptical about it, and we plan to run a campaign to beat it,” said Peter Koltak, a strategist at Protect Your Vote Nevada.

Sondra Cosgrove, a professor at the College of Southern Nevada who championed the measure on a pro bono basis, said she was concerned about the lack of engagement from supporters of the ballot question since 2022. The Facebook and Facebook pages X the accounts have not made any new posts since 2022.

“We just said, ‘OK, well the grassroots are going to keep talking about it, maybe we’ll see you again in the summer of 2024,'” said Cosgrove, who also runs the nonprofit civic engagement Vote Nevada. “Since then, we really haven’t had any news about the official campaign from the donors. It’s sort of a simple black box.

How would it work

Question 3, which seeks to amend the Nevada Constitution, would require most partisan elections in Nevada to move to a ranked-choice voting system. This would exclude the presidential election but would include elections for the U.S. Senate and Congress, legislative elections and statewide vacancies.

If passed, primary elections in the state would open to all voters, regardless of party registration, starting in 2026, with the top five vote-getters advancing to the general election, where voters would rank the candidates in order of preference.

Voters could mark up to five preferences among candidates, but could also choose to rank a single candidate or fewer than five. Votes for “none of the above” would have to be calculated, reported and made public, but would not be counted in electing or ranking candidates for partisan office.

The biggest supporter of Question 3 is Katherine Gehl, a Wisconsin-based businesswoman and founder of a nonprofit organization that promotes “Final-Five Voting,” the combined voting system open to primaries and to the preferential choices contained in the Nevada ballot initiative. Gehl was the largest donor to the pro-Question 3 PAC heading into the 2022 election.

Representatives for the nonprofit did not respond to an email requesting an interview about whether it was still involved in the ballot measure effort.

Supporters say the system would allow more voters to participate in the electoral process, especially since nonpartisan voters make up the largest group of registered voters in the Silver State, and would make it more difficult for candidates to succeed in extreme positions.

The state’s Republican and Democratic parties fiercely opposed the move, arguing it would confuse voters, take a long time and could lead to errors resulting in eligible votes being thrown out.

A poll conducted last year by the Guinn Center, a nonprofit policy-focused research group, indicates that many Nevada voters “lack awareness or understanding of the proposed reform and its impacts.” Specifically, the poll found that even after reading a sample explanation of the measure in Question 3, 37 percent of respondents responded “I don’t know” to a question about their opinion on the reform.

A majority of respondents (41 percent) indicated they supported Question 3, while 22 percent indicated they would not support it. The Guinn Center noted in its report that younger voters are generally more supportive of ranked-choice voting than older voters, and that Democrats are more likely to support this method of voting than Republicans.

Explore finances

Nevada Voters First reported a contribution of more than $1,000 since the 2022 election, including a donation of about $207,000 in August 2023 from Unite America, a Denver-based group that supports non-voting election reform. partisan, including open primaries. The group (Gehl was a board member) helped contribute millions of dollars to the PAC during the 2022 cycle.

Unite America did not respond to a question about its future spending plans on the ballot question.

The lack of contributions so far this election cycle marks a significant change from two years ago, when the PAC was formed and had to begin collecting tens of thousands of signatures to qualify for the ballot while avoiding legal challenges. In the first quarter of 2022, Nevada Voters First raised more than $2.25 million from more than a dozen donors, including a national group promoting ranked-choice voting and several national groups, including the Nevada Association of Realtors, a PAC associated with the Clark County Education Association and Wynn Resorts.

Nevada Voters First has spent more than $800,000 this election cycle, mostly on consulting. He paid $240,000 to Winner & Mandabach Campaigns, a national consulting group focused on ballot initiatives. The PAC also paid more than $175,000 to Argentum Partners, a Las Vegas government affairs firm, for fees related to consulting, advertising, office and special events services.

The PAC also spent about $70,000 on polling conducted by FM3 Research, a California-based group that focuses on candidate surveys and voter measurement.

Officials of the new Vote Yes on 3 PACs have not filed a campaign finance report for the first quarter of 2024. Under state law, a PAC is not required to file a report if it raised less than $1,000 or spent no money to support or oppose. a candidate or group of candidates. The PAC was created just two weeks before the reporting deadline ended – the next quarterly campaign finance reports aren’t due until July 15.

The PAC, linked to Democrats and opposed to the ballot initiative, reported raising no money this election cycle, but it spent far less than Nevada Voters First.

What happens next?

Cosgrove said she was never on the campaign payroll, but attended meetings with the group and helped organize support for the ballot measure.

After the ballot measure passed in 2022, she said the Question 3 organization let its campaign manager go and “became very different.” Cosgrove said the campaign told him and others that it would not do any advocacy during the 2023 legislative session and would reconnect with voters in the summer of 2024.

The creation of a new PAC was a surprise, Cosgrove said, adding that she was “very concerned” about the lack of grassroots engagement and is largely concerned about the influence of donors and consultants outsiders in election campaigns (the newly registered PAC’s chairman, Neal Levine, is a former Nevada resident based in New York). Still, she said she and other volunteers have shared information about ranked-choice voting through presentations and community engagement efforts.

Levine, who is considered an expert on cannabis policy, ballot initiatives and independent spending campaigns, previously participated in Nevada’s cannabis legalization campaigns. He declined an interview request.

She said she would like to see more money spent on educating voters about the ranked-choice process and raising awareness about the ballot issue.

“I’m hoping that the official campaign will come back to us so that maybe we can report back on what we’ve done over the last 18 months,” Cosgrove said, so that the new group doesn’t “sprinkle publicity Above all”. in a place that may not correspond to what we hear.