Tag Archives: Ranked Choice Voting

Stopping A Bad Idea In Its Tracks

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On Monday, The Maine Morning Star posted an article about a recent decision by the Maine Supreme Court.

The article reports:

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Monday that a bill to expand ranked choice voting to general elections for governor, state representative and state senator would violate the Maine Constitution. 

“Because of the Maine Constitution’s language, there are strong and convincing reasons that LD 1666 is unconstitutional, and we conclude that the presumption of constitutionality has been overcome,” the justices stated in a unanimous opinion. 

The bill passed initial votes in the Maine Senate and House of Representatives, but was tabled in the upper chamber while awaiting the ruling from the court. The court’s ruling is advisory, but Gov. Janet Mills previously said she opposed the legislation, but would be interested in the court’s ruling.

The article notes:

However, the League of Women Voters of Maine — which has been advocating for ranked choice voting in Maine since initially passed by referendum in 2016 — said they disagreed with the court’s assessment.

“We continue to hold the legal perspective that ranked choice voting is lawful within the framework of Maine’s Constitution,” said executive director Chrissy Hart. “RCV is the best method in Maine to elect candidates that receive broad support, and RCV has long been popular among Maine voters. While the justices’ opinion is disappointing, it will not stop us from advocating for the will of the people and fighting for what they approved in the 2016 referendum.”

Ranked choice voting is confusing and does not necessarily elect the person who gets the majority of the votes.

Ballotpedia posted a chart explaining how this could happen:

Click here to see the chart more clearly.

Depending on how voters mark their ballots, under ranked choice voting, a candidate who was the second or third choice of voters can easily win an election. This is not progress, it is confusion designed to create chaos.

Elections Have Consequences

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Now that the Democrats have taken over the governorship and legislature of Virginia, I wonder if the voters are happy with what they are seeing.

The following list was posted on X:

Look for a massive exodus from the Commonwealth of Virginia–one of the prettiest states in the nation. Virginia is my stop-off place when coming home from New England to North Carolina. With the increase in the hotel tax, I might want to reconsider that. Taxes in Virginia are increasing, and freedom is decreasing for law-abiding citizens. Criminal penalties for robbery are decreasing. Outlawing hand-counting ballots will make it easier to cheat in elections, and expanding ranked-choice voting will simply confuse everyone.

The Problem With Ranked-Choice Voting

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Ranked-choice voting in the New York City mayoral primary gave a victory to Zohran Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly from the 36th district, based in Queens, since 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. (see previous article referencing the Democratic Socialists of America.) 

Here are a few of Zohran Mamdani’s ideas according to his campaign website:

1. As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent. The number one reason working families are leaving our city is the housing crisis. The Mayor has the power to change that.

2. Zohran won New York’s first fare-free bus pilot on five lines across the city. As Mayor, he’ll permanently eliminate the fare on every city bus – and make them faster by rapidly building priority lanes, expanding bus queue jump signals, and dedicated loading zones to keep double parkers out of the way. Fast and free buses will not only make buses reliable and accessible but will improve safety for riders and operators – creating the world-class service New Yorkers deserve.

3. Zohran will create the Department of Community Safety to prevent violence before it happens by prioritizing solutions which have been consistently shown to improve safety…Police have a critical role to play. But right now, we’re relying on them to deal with the failures of our social safety net—which prevents them from doing their actual jobs. Through this new city agency and whole-of-government approach, community safety will be prioritized like never before in NYC.

4. Zohran will implement free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years, ensuring high quality programming for all families. And he will bring up wages for childcare workers – a quarter of whom currently live in poverty – to be at parity with public school teachers.

He may provide living proof of the Margaret Thatcher quote, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” The only question is going to be how long that will take in New York City. The city avoided bankruptcy in 1975 (article here).

Just to add some perspective, the following headline was posted at The New York Post on Wednesday:

Luxury real estate brokers say wealthy New Yorkers are already looking to flee after Zohran Mamdani’s primary win

The Republican candidate for Mayor is Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. However, generally speaking, Republicans do not win mayoral races in New York City. Eric Adams is running as an independent candidate.

Something Every State Should Do

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On Thursday, The Federalist posted an article about ranked-choice voting. This is a method of voting where voters choose three candidates in the order they prefer them.

The article explains it this way:

Often referred to as “rigged-choice voting” by its critics, RCV is a system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

The article notes that a few more states have outlawed this practice:

West Virginia and Wyoming took major steps toward securing their elections by passing prohibitions on the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV).

On Tuesday, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed into law SB 490, which stipulates that “[n]o state, county, or local elections office may use ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting to conduct an election or nomination of any candidate in this state for any local government, statewide, or federal elective office.” Any “existing or future ordinance” adopted by a local government promoting the use of such a system would be declared void under the measure.

Every state needs to do this.

Rejecting Ranked-Choice Voting

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Ranked-choice voting is the new tool of those attempting to rig elections. Right now ranked-choice voting is used for elections in Maine and Alaska. It provides a way for a candidate that is not really the first choice of anyone to win an election.

Ballotpedia explains how ranked-choice voting works:

How ranked-choice voting works

Broadly speaking, the ranked-choice voting process unfolds as follows for single-winner elections:

    1. Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots.
    2. If a candidate wins an outright majority of first-preference votes (i.e., 50 percent plus one), he or she will be declared the winner.
    3. If, on the other hand, no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated.
    4. All first-preference votes for the failed candidate are eliminated, and second-preference choices on these ballots are then counted as first-preference.
    5. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority of the ballots.
    6. The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast.

The article includes a chart illustrating the process:

I realize the chart is hard to read, but the bottom line is that the candidate who actually got 22.9 percent of the vote beat the candidate who got 31.3 percent of the vote. It is too easy to skew the results of an election with ranked-choice voting.

On Friday, The Federalist reported:

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed legislation Tuesday prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV) in elections.

SB 101 stipulates that a “ranked-choice voting or instant runoff voting method shall not be used in determining the election or nomination of any candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office in this state.” The bill would not apply to “all votes cast by military and overseas voters by special absentee by mail ballots in accordance with the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.”

SB 101 originally passed the Senate in a 29-9 vote in March. An amended version of the bill was passed by the House (73-23) on May 15 and subsequently concurred with by the Senate (29-8) last week.

SB 101 was sponsored by GOP Sen. Blake Miguez, a member of the Louisiana Freedom Caucus. Miguez also sponsored Louisiana’s recently enacted constitutional amendment banning “Zuckbucks.”

The article concludes:

RCV has also produced election results that contradict the desires of voters. Some of these examples include the aforementioned special congressional election in Alaska and a 2018 Maine congressional contest. The Democrat candidates won both races despite Republican candidates receiving more votes in the first round of voting.

SB 101’s implementation makes Louisiana the 10th state to prohibit the use of RCV in its elections. Other states to prohibit the system this year include Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, a constitutional amendment proposal prohibiting the use of RCV in Missouri elections will appear on the state’s fall ballot.

This is one step in the direction of making sure our elections reflect the will of the voters.

 

 

Working To End A Mistake

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Ranked-choice voting (RCV) has been put in place in various voting districts in America. The supporters of this idea claim that it gives voters more of a choice in elections. Actually, it does a really good job of confusing voters and electing peoples’ second choices rather than their first choices. For instance–if five people vote for candidate A, four people vote for candidate B and three people vote for candidate C in the usual election process, candidate A wins. In RCV, if seven people listed candidate C as their second choice and no other voters listed a second choice, candidate C would win. It’s a confusing system where no one wins.

On February 27th, Alaska Public Media reported:

A ballot measure to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting and return to a partisan primary has cleared an initial review.

Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who heads the Alaska Division of Elections, announced Tuesday that sponsors of the anti-ranked choice initiative gathered nearly 37,000 signatures — about 10,000 more than necessary. She said the state is still in the process of verifying all the signatures.

Phillip Izon, director of the group sponsoring the repeal, said he doesn’t expect they’ll have any trouble meeting the threshold.

“We did a lot of work on validation, verification. Spent many months on it. So we feel very confident,” he said.

The signatures come from 34 of Alaska’s 40 voting districts – four more than the law requires. 

Alaskans for Better Elections is defending the new voting system and campaigning against repeal. Its director, Juli Lucky, said her group heard of anomalies in the signature-gathering process, so they plan to examine the petitions once they’re made public.

The implementation of RCV is Alaska is probably responsible for the fact that Lisa Murkowski currently represents the State of Alaska in the Senate.

Rejecting Change That Would Have A Negative Impact

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On Wednesday, The Federalist posted an article about a positive change that came out of last week’s Republican National Committee (RNC) meeting.

The article reports:

While most corporate media coverage of last week’s Republican National Committee (RNC) meeting was devoted to the contested leadership race between Ronna McDaniel and Harmeet Dhillon, the organization’s conference yielded a significant win for election integrity.

During the meeting, RNC members unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV) in U.S. elections. In an RCV system, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. Such a process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

The process is confusing to the voters and can allow a person who really does not have the support of the majority of the voters to win an election.

The article concludes:

Should they adopt ranked-choice voting, state lawmakers would be subjecting their citizens to a process that disenfranchises both candidates and voters alike. Moreover, the chaotic system would further undermine voters’ already-waning confidence in America’s elections.

State legislatures across the country would be wise to follow the RNC’s lead in rejecting the use of RCV. With its multiple rounds of counting and confusing methodology, the RCV system will almost assuredly end in disaster. (Just ask Alameda County, California).

“Every state should strive to increase voter confidence through procedures that tighten election protections, not turn them into a demolition derby. Everyone should oppose rigged choice voting,” Taylor said.

Ranked-choice voting would further undermine confidence in our elections and would likely put people in office that the majority of the voters did not support. It is a really bad idea that needs to go away.

Ranked Choice Voting

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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.