By Steve Brawner, © 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Two important citizen-led initiatives that could have been on your ballot this election cycle won’t be.

One would have changed the way Arkansas draws its congressional and state legislative maps, which is done every 10 years after each U.S. census under the U.S. Constitution. Currently, the Legislature draws the congressional lines while the governor, attorney general and secretary of state draw the legislative lines.

Unfortunately, the majority party can take advantage of this process to draw squiggly lines to stuff the other party’s voters into a few districts while spreading theirs strategically. This “gerrymandering” is almost as old as the republic, but technology has made it an exact science. Politicians can pick their voters rather than the other way around.

The initiative’s purpose was to take the power away from the politicians and their computers. An independent commission composed of three Republicans, three Democrats and three members of neither party would have been in charge of the process.

The other citizen-led initiative would have changed the way Arkansas elects officials at the state and congressional levels. Instead of split primaries, all the candidates would have been on the ballot, and the top four would have advanced. In November, voters would have ranked their choices. If no candidate won a majority of first choices, voters’ second choices would have come into play.

Under the current system, since most districts are dominated by one party, candidates are only concerned with the party primaries that occur in March and May. They know if they get through those, they’ll win in November.

These separate Republican and Democratic primaries attract a relatively small number of voters – 38% turnout in 2016 and 19% in 2018 – divided between the two parties. Candidates in a Republican- or Democratic-dominated district only need to win a majority of the small number of people voting in their own primary.

Those voters tend to be more partisan and ideological than the general population. Naturally, the process produces winning primary candidates who are like those voters, or at least who pretend to be.

In November, some voters in the middle might not like either candidate. They might even prefer the Libertarian candidate or an independent. But because it’s a winner-take-all system, they feel they must choose the major party candidate they fear or dislike the least. It’s called the “spoiler effect.”

The “open primaries” ballot initiative would have incentivized candidates to appeal to larger slices of the electorate throughout the process, rather than focusing on winning the primary. That’s because all voters would have been voting together in the primary, and then they could list their second choices in November.

Unfortunately, both proposals are off the ballot. Secretary of State John Thurston invalidated them – and another casino gambling initiative – because the sponsors certified that signature gatherers had “acquired” a criminal background check rather than “passed” one, even though there’s no such thing as “passing” a background check, and even though the sponsors demonstrated the gatherers had no disqualifying histories. The Arkansas Supreme Court agreed, so the sponsors went to federal court and then lost their case last month.

The open primaries supporters can return in two years. The legislative redistricting effort might as well wait 10 because it won’t do any good until then. In the meantime, the current system will continue where we know who’s going to win almost every race, partly because many incumbents don’t even have an opponent.

I believe most elected officials are decent people, and they deserve credit for putting their names on the line. But those who gain power will try to keep it by rewriting some rules and making sure others don’t change. That’s human nature. As voters, it can be tempting to let them do this, particularly when our side is winning.

Unfortunately, the current system is helping create a highly partisan environment where few elections are competitive, money rules, voters don’t have choices, and third party candidates and independents can’t win.

At some point, we voters should take a break from arguing with each other about all these things we argue about, and remember that our first responsibility is to keep an eye on the politicians. If the rules let them get too comfortable, then change the rules.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.