The campaigns for and against the three proposed Pierce County charter amendments both seem to be operating on the KISS principle: “Keep it simple, stupid.”

They’re urging voters to either adopt them all or reject them all. It makes for a simple yard sign slogan, like “No rigging the system.”

We think the citizens can handle more complexity than that. In our opinion, voters ought to adopt amendments 1 and 2, but go slow on Amendment 3, which would repeal ranked-choice voting.

The first two proposed amendments ought to be adopted as a package.

Amendment 1 would do two things: move the elections of County Council members and the county executive from even-numbered years to odd-numbered years and extend their term limits from two to three terms (for a maximum of 12 years).

Amendment 2 would move the elections for auditor, assessor-treasurer and sheriff to odd-numbered years.

The entanglement of longer term limits and odd-year-elections in Amendment 1 is annoying. Regardless, both are good ideas.

A two-term limit might make sense for the president of the United States; it doesn’t for county officials. In any government, unelected staff members have the ability to control information, resist change, perpetuate agency culture and keep a hand on the levers of power.

Newly elected officials can be at a disadvantage in the face of staff resistance. Veteran officeholders have more experience, and tend to have acquired more clout and ability to carry out their agendas. Better a maximum of three terms than two terms. Term limits are best enforced by the voters themselves, who can fire a policymaker after a single term if need be.

Odd-year elections are an easy call. On even years, especially during presidential years, much of the focus shifts to the top of the ballot, to races for president, governor, Congress and so on. Moving county elections to the less-crowded odd-year ballots would allow more attention to these important local offices.

Amendment 3 would do away with ranked-choice voting for county offices, which had a rocky introduction last November.

This system – unusual in the United States – lets voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins outright with first-choice votes, second-choice candidates get counted, and so on. It’s all done in the general election; there is no primary.

Last November’s first-ever RCV election met with considerable backlash; many citizens did not like or trust the ranked-choice ballot.

Last year also highlighted the virtues of a primary. The “inefficiency” of a preliminary election provides voters with a good, long look at the two finalists and helps guard against a fluke outcome. The state and federal constitutions build inefficiency into the law-making process for much the same reason.

Public reaction and the primary issue have left us with some misgivings about Pierce County’s RCV experiment. Still, we don’t think the new system ought to be rejected solely on the basis of its maiden voyage. It deserves another chance to prove itself – ideally with a simpler, odd-year ballot, which the passage of amendments 1 and 2 would ensure.

 • To read previous election endorsement editorials, log on to www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/endorsements.