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Gennady Stolyarov II<\/strong><\/p>\n The United States Transhumanist Party<\/a> and\u00a0Nevada Transhumanist Party<\/a>\u00a0offer the following brief statements of position on the ballot questions currently before Nevada voters in the 2022 General Election.<\/p>\n Summary<\/strong><\/em> Wording of Question:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cShall the Nevada Constitution be amended by adding a specific guarantee that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this State or any of its cities, counties, or other political subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin?\u201d (More information on\u00a0BallotPedia<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party:<\/strong>\u00a0The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party consider it necessary to support Ballot Question 1 because of the broader commitment to universal rights expressed in the\u00a0Transhumanist Bill of Rights \u2013 Version 3.0<\/a>. Article I of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights reads, in part, that \u201cAll sentient entities are entitled, to the extent of their individual decisions, to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, social, or planetary origin, property, birth (including manner of birth), biological or non-biological origins, or other status.\u201d The text of Nevada State Ballot Question 1 recognizes equality of rights for a subset of the above-listed sentient entities and is therefore a step in the correct direction. In the prohibition on governmental entities denying or abridging rights on the basis of the attributes mentioned, Ballot Question 1 expresses the essential principle that individuals should be treated as individuals, not members of larger, mostly circumstantial identity groups. This is affirmed in Article X of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which states, in part, that \u201cMorphological freedom entails the duty to treat all sapients as individuals instead of categorizing them into arbitrary subgroups or demographics, including as yet undefined subcategorizations that may arise as sapience evolves.\u201d The rights of an individual should therefore not be abridged, especially by governments, simply because the individual happens to belong to a broader category whose definition is many times outside the scope of that individual\u2019s personal choices.<\/p>\n Wording of Question:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cShall the Nevada Constitution be amended, effective July 1, 2024, to: (1) establish the State\u2019s minimum wage that employers must pay to certain employees at a rate of $12 per hour worked, subject to any applicable increases above that $12 rate provided by federal law or enacted by the Nevada Legislature; (2) remove the existing provisions setting different rates for the minimum wage based on whether the employer offers certain health benefits to such employees; and (3) remove the existing provisions for adjusting the minimum wage based on applicable increases in the cost of living?\u201d (More information on\u00a0BallotPedia<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party:<\/strong>\u00a0The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party are neutral on Ballot Question 2, as both of our parties\u2019 Platforms are silent on the issue of the minimum wage, whether it should exist at all, whether higher or lower amounts of the minimum wage are preferable, and whether or not the presence of any health benefits should be able to count toward satisfying a portion of any minimum-wage requirement. Accordingly, our members in Nevada are encouraged to vote their conscience on this ballot question by consulting their own individual understandings of the relevant matters.<\/p>\n Wording of Question:<\/strong> \u201cShall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow all Nevada voters the right to participate in open primary elections to choose candidates for the general election in which all voters may then rank the remaining candidates by preference for the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Attorney General, and State Legislators?\u201d (More information on\u00a0BallotPedia<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Position of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party:<\/strong>\u00a0In the view of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party, this is the single most important ballot measure in Nevada political history, as it has the potential to break the stranglehold of the duopoly on Nevada politics. The plurality of Nevada voters are independent of the major political parties, and yet they are currently unable to meaningfully influence many local races where a major-party primary determines that party\u2019s nominee, who then receives no meaningful competition at the ballot box in the general election. Moreover, Nevada, as a \u201cbattleground\u201d electoral state, often features great pressure applied on voters to support the \u201clesser evil\u201d, despite many Nevada voters being rightly disillusioned with both the Republican and the Democratic \u201coptions\u201d provided to them. Ranked-preference voting eliminates the incentive to vote strategically or for a \u201clesser evil\u201d to the exclusion of one\u2019s genuinely preferred candidate, since one can provide a complete rank-ordering of one\u2019s preferences rather than limit oneself to one choice.<\/p>\n Section XXX of the\u00a0U.S. Transhumanist Party Platform<\/a>\u00a0states that \u201cThe United States Transhumanist Party supports replacing the current \u2018winner-take-all\u2019 electoral system with proportional representation, ranked preference voting, and other devices to minimize the temptations by voters to favor a perceived \u2018lesser evil\u2019 rather than the candidates closest to those voters\u2019 own preferences.\u201d Thus, support for ranked-choice voting is directly embedded in our Platform. Furthermore, Section XIX of the USTP Platform reads, in part, \u201cThe United States Transhumanist Party supports an end to the two-party political system in the United States and a substantially greater inclusion of \u2018third parties\u2019 in the political process through mechanisms such as proportional representation and the elimination of stringent ballot-access requirements.\u201d Allowing open access to primaries and enabling ranked-preference voting in the general election would certainly lower the barriers to entry to candidates who do not belong to either of the duopoly parties.<\/p>\n The U.S. Transhumanist Party has successfully implemented ranked-preference voting in multiple of its internal votes. There is every reason to expect that ranked-preference voting could be implemented with similar success for the much simpler top-five ballots in Nevada general elections that would be developed if Question 3 were to be approved by the voters (twice, the first time this year). The U.S. Transhumanist Party and Nevada Transhumanist Party strongly encourage every Nevada voter to support Ballot Question 3.<\/p>\n For an extensive discussion of how ranked-choice voting works, the USTP encourages everyone to view our\u00a0Virtual Enlightenment Salon with Kit Muehlman and FairVote Washington<\/a>, as well as a subsequent, in-depth\u00a0presentation by FairVote Washington<\/a>\u00a0on the technical workings of proportional ranked-choice voting.<\/p>\n
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\nNevada State Question 1 \u2013 Equality of Rights Amendment:\u00a0<\/em>Support<\/em><\/strong>
\nNevada State Question 2 \u2013 Minimum Wage Amendment:\u00a0Neutral<\/strong>
\nNevada State Question 3 \u2013 Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative:\u00a0Strongly\u00a0<\/strong>Support<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nNevada State Ballot Question 1 \u2013 Equality of Rights Amendment:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Nevada State Ballot Question 2 \u2013 Minimum Wage Amendment:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Nevada State Ballot Question 3 \u2013 Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative:<\/strong><\/h3>\n