There are three ballot questions this year in Nevada. They deal with equality, minimum wage and ranked-choice voting.
Early voting begins Saturday, Oct. 22. Early voting locations can be found on the Nevada Secretary of State website, or inside mail ballots which Clark County residents should begin recieving this week.
QUESTION 1
The Equality of Rights Amendment is on the ballot in Nevada as a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment.
It proposes adding language to the Nevada constitution that prohibits the denial of rights of an individual on several points that go beyond the federal language: an individual's race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.
“The federal ERA just says on account of sex," said Kate Kelly, the organizer of Nevada ERA. "The Nevada ERA prohibits discrimination on the basis of ... categories are way bigger than just 'on account of sex ... which has not been finalized.”
Kelly said 26 states already have equal rights amendments. If passed, Nevada’s will be the most comprehensive and inclusive equal rights amendment in the country.
This is important to add to the constitution because it’s permanent and statutes are not, she said. This came to light most recently with the Dobbs case which overturned Roe v Wade.
"The Dobbs decision is just a little window into why it's so important to solidify these into permanent constitutional protections," she said.
QUESTION 2
Question 2 is the minimum wage amendment: It proposes amending the state constitution to increase the minimum wage for all employees in Nevada to $12 per hour by July 1, 2024.
The wage would apply to all workers regardless of whether or not they get health benefits from their employers.
A "no" vote maintains the existing increase of the minimum wage to $11 for employees receiving health benefits and $12 for employees not receiving health benefits by 2024.
Christine Sanders is the policy director with activist organization Progrssive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) who said, unfortunately, many employers found loopholes.
"What we’ve seen is businesses offer really terrible health plans. Sometimes people even opt out of them," she said. "If they are sick, what they end up with is not having great health insurance and making a dollar less than everyone else. They are worse off than they would have been had they been paid that dollar more."
Initial objections from business owners have essentially been diminished with the Affordable Care Act, which does have requirements for employer-offered insurance coverage.
This topic was discussed during legislative sessions in 2019 and 2021, resulting in Assembly Bill 456 and Assembly Joint Resolution 10. Those hearings are publically available online, so you can listen to supporters and opposers of the minimum wage debate.
QUESTION 3
Question 3 is the ranked-choice voting initiative.
A "yes" vote supports establishing open top-five primaries and ranked-choice voting for general elections, which would apply to congressional, gubernatorial, state executive official and state legislative elections.
This means any registered voter can cast a ballot for any candidate, regardless of the party affiliation of the candidate or the voter.
Rather than have the primary election to nominate a single candidate as the party’s candidate for the general election, the primary election would be used to narrow down all candidates to a top five list. The top five candidates who received the greatest amount of votes would proceed to the general election.
You may have seen ads promoting Question 3 as a way to provide more open elections.
Those who oppose it say the ranking aspect is not being promoted.
Emily Persaud-Zamora, executive director for Silver State Votes said ranked-choice voting has backfired for many voters.
"The ACLU of Kentucky testified in their state legislature around ranked-choice voting," she explained. "They talked about the amount of returned ballots when it comes to ranked-choice voting. The communities that saw the biggest disconnect of returned ballots because of being incomplete or whatever were communities of color.”
This is a complicated and multifaceted issue. There are many explainer videos online you can review that dissect each aspect of ballot question number 3.
