Ranked-Choice Voting Turns Election Day Into Election Month(s)
- BY FGA
Alameda County in California finally knows the outcome of their tumultuous school board election.
It only took four months, a third party flagging the need for a recount, and a judge making the final call.
Mike Hutchinson, the eventual winner of the school board race, praised the process working itself out. But elections shouldn’t have to be a “process.” Election Day shouldn’t take four months.
Unfortunately, long delays are the norm when it comes to ranked-choice voting.
In Maine’s 2022 Second Congressional District race, a “technical snafu” led to two memory sticks, which had recorded more than 16,000 ballots, being corrupted. It took seven days to decide the official winner. In the 2018 race in that same congressional district, it took nine days to announce the winner.
In New York City’s 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, it took eight rounds and 15 days to announce Eric Adams the winner.
Ranked-choice voting is simple, advocates say. It works, they say. It’s fair.
For whom?
Certainly not for voters.
Any voting process that throws out ballots and isn’t one person, one vote isn’t fair. Ranked-choice voting turns elections into a game to be won, and the far-Left knows how to play. Fortunately, states are stepping up to ban ranked-choice voting before it poisons local elections. Florida and Tennessee banned it statewide in 2022, and South Dakota’s ban was signed into law this week. Other states, including Idaho, Alaska, Texas, Arizona, Maine, and Montana, have legislation in their legislatures to ban it. More states should follow suit.
