Ranked Choice Voting: A Threat to Democracy Explained

The Origins and Funding of Ranked Choice Voting

• 💡 Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is primarily funded and promoted by left-wing mega donors, including figures like George Soros, indicating its origins as a tool to push politics leftward.
• 🎯 Proponents attempt to present RCV as a bipartisan idea, using astroturf organizations and recruiting former politicians and lobbyists to gain traction among Republicans and conservatives.

How Ranked Choice Voting Works and Its Problems

• 🗳️ RCV replaces traditional "one person, one vote" elections with a system where voters rank candidates. If no candidate achieves a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their ballots are redistributed based on the next preference.
• ❌ This process can lead to "exhausted ballots" where a voter's ballot is discarded if they don't rank enough candidates to remain in contention, effectively removing their vote from the total count.
• ⏱️ The multi-round tabulation process is prone to delay and error, turning elections into a "black box" where voters may not remember their rankings or know how their vote was ultimately counted.
• 🤯 In Oakland, California, an error in RCV tabulation led to the wrong winner being declared, requiring four months and a lawsuit to correct, highlighting the system's complexity and potential for mistakes.

RCV's Impact on Voters and Election Integrity

• 📉 RCV makes voting harder for voters, especially vulnerable populations like senior citizens, who must rank numerous candidates, increasing the risk of errors or manipulation, particularly with ballot harvesting.
• ⚖️ It is ironic that proponents of RCV, who argue against voter ID laws as too cumbersome, advocate for a system that requires voters to understand and rank dozens of candidates across multiple races.
• 🗣️ Some proponents have even suggested RCV is too complicated for general election voters, recommending its use only in primaries with supposedly "more educated and informed voters."

RCV's Rejection and Unsuitability

• 🚫 RCV has been rejected in multiple jurisdictions that tried it, including cities in Utah that walked away from pilot programs due to unfulfilled promises of lower costs and ease of use.
• 📊 In the last year, voters in six states rejected RCV ballot measures, and in Alaska, a repeal effort only narrowly failed despite significant spending by RCV proponents.
• 🇺🇸 The use of RCV in Virginia's Republican nominating convention was a response to COVID-19 restrictions, not an endorsement of RCV, and the eventual winner led in every round, indicating RCV did not cause his victory.
• 📬 Combining RCV with all-mail balloting systems exacerbates problems, as errors like overvotes or undervotes cannot be corrected, and delayed ballot arrivals further complicate tabulation and reduce transparency.
• 💰 RCV weakens political parties, creating a power vacuum that can be filled by mega-donors, increasing the potential for manipulation and "gaming" of election results by those with financial influence.

Honest Elections Project's Work

• 🏆 The Honest Elections Project has achieved victories in states like Kansas, banning RCV and closing foreign funding loopholes for ballot measures.
• 🌍 The organization is working to pass RCV bans in more states and close loopholes that allow foreign nationals to finance ballot issue campaigns, aiming to protect the integrity of state constitutions and election laws.