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In most elections during my lifetime, that would be no big shocker. From my first election in 1986, I’ve consistently voted for a variety of Democrats and Republicans, and even third-party candidates (hello, Ross Perot). I was born and raised in Colorado, a state with a heavily independent political streak, and when I first moved to Missouri, it was known as a bellwether state with similar tendencies.

Colorado rode a blue wave on Tuesday. Missouri’s map turned a deeper shade of red.

In the Age of Trump, my voting patterns, like most Americans, have changed. The says that in states that have a Senate race, fewer than 4% of Americans will split their ticket between president and senate in 2020, following trends going back a couple of election cycles. In 2016, after fewer Americans split their senate and presidential tickets than in a century, The Washington Post asked in a headline:

Mostly, it seems, it is, and from where I sit, that’s bad for the country.

About that Republican.

I voted for Bruce DeGroot, but I didn’t really have a choice. DeGroot, who lives in Chesterfield, is my state representative. He didn’t have an opponent. Sadly, this is the norm for too many voters in Missouri, be they in Democratic-dominated districts, or Republican ones like where I live.

There were seven state Senate districts without contested races (at least from a major party candidate) on Tuesday, and in a similar situation. This means that hundreds of thousands of Missouri voters didn’t have a choice on Tuesday for the elected representatives that go to the state Capitol and pass the laws that have a direct effect on their lives.

Sadly, this is by design. Most of those representatives and senators are in gerrymandered legislative districts intended to protect incumbents. If they can survive a primary that speaks only to their base voters, they win election without any incentive to speak to independent voters or those across the aisle.

That’s why Missourians voted by a 2-to-1 margin in 2018 to change this system, passing the Clean Missouri constitutional amendment that would seek to bring more competitive balance and independence to the process of drawing legislative districts.

On Tuesday, Missouri voters undid those reforms, passing a cynical and deceptive Amendment 3 that was put on the ballot not by voters but by the Republican supermajority in the Legislature as an attempt to protect its gerrymandered districts when they are redrawn after the census.

Three different courts ruled that the ballot language written by lawmakers was deceptive, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the strength of the GOP in rural Missouri, where lawmakers urged their voters to pass the amendment. There is a good chance that elements of the amendment — such as its first-in-the-nation attempt not to count children when drawing districts — will be challenged in court. One Democrat, former attorney general candidate Elad Gross, has already promised to sue if the Legislature uses the amendment to further diminish Democratic voices in the state.

For now, though, with Gov. Mike Parson winning reelection, Republicans will have a huge influence on what the next legislative maps look like. And with the Clean Missouri reforms wiped away, there is a decent chance that come next presidential election in 2024, many voters in Missouri will again be facing a ballot with few seriously contested seats for state House or Senate.

Compare that to the U.S. Senate, where every single seat is contested, and as they did Tuesday, the races often come down to the wire. Why should voters in west St. Louis County, or the city of St. Louis, or any number of rural parts of the state, not have the same opportunity to have their voices heard in local legislative races that will have an effect on local school or transportation funding, on the criminal justice system or any number of local issues?

The irony of DeGroot running unopposed is that even with a Democratic opponent, he might have earned my vote. He sponsored the bipartisan legislation in 2019 that required courts in the state to seek civil remedy from poor people who can’t afford to pay their bills for previous stays in jail, rather than threatening them with more jail time, as had been a common practice. It might be one of the few things DeGroot and I agree on, but it was an important bill that spoke to an issue that appealed to Democrats and Republicans.

The Missouri Legislature needs more of that. Having dozens of uncontested races with little to no competitive balance makes it less likely that such legislative cooperation will be a part of the ongoing conversation in the state Capitol.

For those of us who prefer to split their tickets, the passage of Amendment 3 made that dream dissipate in a poof of backroom smoke.