Ranked Choice Voting... What It Is, and Why You Don't Want It

Just another attack on the integrity of our elections.

Mar 6

It’s not news to anyone reading this article that there are significant attacks on our way of life taking place. There are forces at work that are systemically trying to undermine every aspect of our lives, from our family ties, to our religious communities, to our education system, and even to our elections. This last category might be the most damning because it could hasten the hammering of the final nail into the coffin of our free society, if it is not stopped, and stopped soon.

The integrity of our elections is under siege. The expansion of mail-in ballot voting (which is the least secure way to vote), “dirty” voter registration rolls that are illegally not being maintained and updated, ballot harvesting, and the influx of private sector persuasive funds like Zuckerbucks, into what is supposed to be our sacred, “free and fair elections” has actually turned them into a crap shoot on who will win (and when, since election day is now election month). I’m sure you’ve all heard of these tactics before, to some extent or another. But there’s another blemish on our elections that is little known, since it is not widely used, and I hope it stays that way, ultimately. However, I am going to share it with you in this article, because I think it’s important for people to be aware of it so that when the anti-constitution activists start calling for this election “reform” in your area, you can oppose it.

It’s called ranked choice voting, and here is how it works.

Instead of our standard election system, where the candidate who gets the most votes wins, ranked choice voting allows voters to vote for multiple candidates who are running for the same office, by ranking them in order of preference. If no candidate achieves more than 50% of the first-place votes, then the candidate that receives the fewest first place votes is eliminated, and that candidate’s second place votes are allocated to the remaining candidates. So just to be clear, the votes of the other voters whose first choice candidate that was eliminated are re-allocated. These rounds of re-allocating second, third or fourth place votes from the bottom-up will continue on and on until one candidate finally gets a “majority” of the votes. Well, a majority of the remaining votes that haven’t been thrown out yet. Sound confusing? Don’t worry if you are scratching your head. I was too when I first read about it.

Think it will cause errors in the voting process due to confusion? Definitely.

Think it will deter people from voting since the process is too confusing or intimidating? No doubt.

Hang on, it gets even more suspect. As you move through each round of the ranked choice voting tabulation, some ballots are declared “exhausted,” (read thrown out), as some voters’ remaining choices do not include candidates who are still in the race as voters’ other (2nd, 3rd, 4th) choices are being re-allocated to the candidates who are still standing. This absolutely disenfranchises “exhausted” voters, excluding them from having their vote counted in final rounds of the process. It also makes hand re-counts and audits virtually impossible.

Sound unfair? Dare I say “inequitable”… It is! With this system of voting, not all voters’ are having their vote weighted equally. Plus, some voters are literally having their votes tossed, whereby lowering the “total” number of ballots, whereby opening the door for someone who hardly anybody voted for to swoop in and win the race. Think I am exaggerating? Sadly, I am not.

For Example:

Maine and Alaska are the only two states currently using this system of voting, though some cities (like NYC and San Francisco) also use it. Here is a real-life example of ranked choice voting causing the candidate who should have won, to lose:

The 2018 Maine 2nd Congressional election had 4 candidates running in it. After the initial vote, Bruce Poliquin was leading with a plurality of votes (45.6%) amongst the four candidates. However, since he didn’t have a majority, ranked-choice eliminations took place. The system determined that the candidates who “weren’t viable” had garnered 8.1% of the total votes. When those candidates were eliminated and votes shifted to next ranked-choices, Poliquin ended up with 49.5% of the vote, just short of the majority needed to win, and his opponent, Jared Golden, ended up winning with 50.5%. But Golden would have lost if the equitable (normal) voting system had been employed.

Pushing back:

Some states are trying to outlaw ranked choice voting, like Arizona, where superstar Senator Wendy Rogers (with whom I had lunch when I was out in Arizona) has co-sponsored a bill that would do just that. The bill passed the state Senate last week and is headed to Arizona’s House for a vote. It will likely pass there, but the looming question is if Democrat Katie Hobbs will veto the bill once it lands on the Governor’s desk?!

Of great note, we can clearly learn from others’ mistakes. Some jurisdictions previously adopted ranked choice voting laws but then repealed them following negative experiences. For example, after a rather unpopular mayor of Burlington was re-elected with only 29% of the first place votes, they then repealed the system and went back to the regular voting methods. In Washington state, Pierce County repealed ranked choice voting by a whopping 71%, and in Aspen, Colorado, it was rescinded by 65%.

North Carolina legislature got rid of ranked choice voting back in 2013. And believe it or not, in California, after the state legislature passed a ranked choice voting system, the long-time governor at the time, Jerry Brown, vetoed the bill. He felt it was overly complicated and confusing, and that it would deprive voters of “genuinely informed choice.”

Let us learn from others’ mistakes.