Memphis ballot questions survive legal challenge

Three Memphis charter amendment questions survived a legal challenge and will remain on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Chancery Court Chancellor Jim Kyle denied an emergency petition on Thursday that argued the questions, which deal with City Council and mayoral term limits and runoff elections, are misleading and should be removed from the ballot. The petition was filed last week by the group Save IRV Memphis and several voters.

The lawsuit named the city of Memphis and the Shelby County Election Commission as defendants, and attorneys for both argued Thursday that a ballot change at this stage would cause significant disruption, confusion and would likely be impossible in time for the start of early voting.

“We’ve already got ballots out to the electorate, the machines are already programmed and ready to go,” attorney John Ryder said.

More than 1,000 absentee and military ballots had been mailed as of Thursday, and voting machines have been programmed with the three questions on them.

The questions ask Memphis voters to decide whether to extend Memphis mayor and City Council term limits to three terms, or 12 years, and to weigh in on runoff procedures in city races.

“I suspect on Nov. 10 we could line up voters from here to East Memphis, and they would say under oath ‘I did not know there were term limits when I voted for that,’ ” said Attorney Randy Fishman, who represented the plaintiffs.

Fishman called the wording of the questions incomprehensible, and argued the city was shirking its duty under state law to provide the public an explanation of the fiscal implications of an instant runoff measure.

The deadline to submit ballot questions to the Shelby County Election Commission was Aug. 23. Kyle questioned why the legal challenge wasn’t filed earlier.

The term-limit question was challenged because it doesn’t tell voters that Memphis council and mayor terms are capped at two four-year terms. The group said the second question uses confusing language to get voters to repeal instant runoff voting for City Council single-district seats before it begins next year. More than 70 percent of voters approved instant runoffs in 2008.

The third question asks if voters want to eliminate runoff elections for single district seats so the top vote-getter wins. The second and third questions are “polar opposites,” Fishman said.

The third ballot question that could eliminate runoff elections for the city’s seven single-district council seats gives incumbent politicians an advantage, the Save IRV Memphis group said.

If voters both repealed instant runoff voting and decide to eliminate run-off elections, they wouldn’t be at odds because the decision to scrap run-offs would take precedent, Memphis City Council attorney Allan Wade said.

“If you do away with runoffs, you have no IRV,” Wade said.

It’s unclear, but possible the questions will face another legal challenge after voters cast their ballots, Fishman said after the hearing.