Ambiguous Pronoun - issue

[puneetdua]

There is growing demand in the state for "initiative and referendum," a procedure that allows voters to propose and pass laws, as well as to repeal them.

(A) allows voters to propose and pass laws, as well as to repeal them
(B) allows voters to propose, pass, and to repeal laws
(C) allows voters to propose, to pass, and repeal laws
(D) will allow the voter to propose, pass, as well as to repeal laws
(E) will allow laws to be proposed, passed, as well as repealed by voters


I have one issue with the OA -A,
[spoiler]isn't the pronoun THEM is ambiguous here...[/spoiler]please explain

[krazy800]

There is growing demand in the state for "initiative and referendum," a procedure that allows voters to propose and pass laws, as well as to repeal them.

(A) allows voters to propose and pass laws, as well as to repeal them
(B) allows voters to propose, pass, and to repeal laws
(C) allows voters to propose, to pass, and repeal laws
(D) will allow the voter to propose, pass, as well as to repeal laws
(E) will allow laws to be proposed, passed, as well as repealed by voters


I have one issue with the OA -A,
[spoiler]isn't the pronoun THEM is ambiguous here...[/spoiler]please explain

great question!!! I see no ambiguity here.

if you want to go by the context... just replace pronoun 'them' with voters (the only two contenders for pronoun 'them' are voters and laws)

so the sentence now says.....' allows voters to repeal voters'... which doesn't make sense.

If you look from grammar perspective

There is a parallelism issue here X as well as Y

X should be parallel to Y

X --- to propose and pass laws
Y---- to repeal them.


So the pronoun 'them' is clearly referring to 'laws'

HTH!!!!