On Wednesday, Just the News reported that a legislative committee in California is about to hear a proposal to ban ranked choice voting in the state.
Fair vote has posted a map showing where ranked choice voting is in use in America:
The Heritage Foundation has one of the best explanations for Ranked Choice Voting that I have heard:
Think about what ranked choice voting destroys. It destroys your clear and knowing choices as a political consumer. Let us call it the supermarket contemplation. In reality, you are choosing one elected official to represent you, just like you might choose one type of steak sauce to buy when you are splurging for steaks. At the supermarket you ponder whether to buy A1, Heinz 57, HP, or the really cheap generic brand you have never tried.
In the real world, you compare price, taste, mood, and maybe even the size of the bottle and then decide on your steak sauce. You know nothing about the generic brand, so you rank it last among your choices, while A1 is ranked a distant third. In your mind, it comes down to Heinz or HP, and you choose the Heinz. You buy that bottle and head home to the grill.
Now imagine if, instead, you had to rank-order all the steak sauces—even the ones you dislike—and at checkout the cashier swaps out your bottle of Heinz 57 with the cheap generic you ranked dead last. Why? Well, the majority of shoppers also down-voted it, but there was no clear front-runner, so the generic snuck up from behind with enough down ballot picks to win. In fact, in this ranked choice supermarket, you might even have helped the lousy generic brand win.
Just the News reports:
The proposal (to end Ranked Choice Voting), contained in Assembly Bill 2808, would prohibit ranked choice voting in state and local elections. A ranked choice voting system allows voters to rank candidates based on preference, having voters indicate their first choice, second choice and so on.
The bill’s author, Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell, said in a statement that ranked choice voting “allows an election to be gamed.”
“Our democracy and our recent elections may be under heightened stress and scrutiny right now, but our long-established voting system is strong,” O’Donnell said. “We are a model for the world. We must not abandon our voting principles to chase the election flavor of the month.”
If passed, the proposal would shift how elections are completed in several areas across the state. Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro and San Francisco adopted a ranked-voting system in the early 2000s and have used it for more than a decade to elect city officials, according to Fair Vote, an advocate of ranked choice voting. Additionally, Albany, Eureka and Palm Desert were set to begin using a ranked-voting system for local elections starting in November 2022.
…This bill is not the first time lawmakers have backed measures to prohibit ranked choice voting. Tennessee recently moved forward with its own ban on ranked choice voting earlier this week. Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation on Monday prohibiting the system from being used in state and local elections.
O’Donnell’s bill could be heard in committee on March 21, according to the state’s legislative tracker.
This is something to keep an eye on. We do not want ranked choice voting to become a national fad.