Today The Kansas City Defender publishes The People’s Ballot, a Missouri 2026 election guide in a time of fascism, and the most comprehensive radical election guide in the state. It is free, it is written in plain language, and it covers both ballots ahead: the August 4 primary and the November 3 general.
We built it because the neo-confederate supermajority in Jefferson City placed its heaviest weapons on the quietest ballot of the year.
Amendment 4 would break the citizen initiative, the tool that won Medicaid expansion, the minimum wage, and reproductive freedom over the legislature’s objection, by letting a single gerrymandered district veto the entire state.
Amendment 5 would phase out the income tax and shift the cost of the state onto working people at the register, the same right-wing extremist experiment that broke Kansas in 2012, this time welded into the constitution.
They chose a low-turnout August ballot for both on purpose.
The guide strips away the ballot language perfume and gives you each measure as you will actually see it, with our position stamped plainly. On candidates, from the Jackson County Executive race to the Bell and Bush rematch in St. Louis to the district they redrew at Troost Avenue, we publish records only: votes, donors, dollars, dates. The facts are arranged but the judgment is yours.
You will also find Kansas City’s five ballot questions, the full list of accepted photo IDs and your right to a provisional ballot, and a printable edition built for church pews, barbershops, and front porches.
We will say here what the guide says at its opening: voting will not free us, organizing will, but voting is harm reduction, and harm reduction is not nothing when the harm is aimed at you.
Read The People’s Ballot now. Print the paper. Then bring three people Tuesday, because a church van is a political machine, and they are counting on yours staying parked.
