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Ranked-Choice Voting is a Disaster

It’s true. Everywhere ranked-choice voting has been tried, it’s been a disaster for election integrity.

Pushed almost exclusively by the Left as an alternative to America’s traditional “one person, one vote” system, ranked-choice voting is actually an alternative voting scam that leads to thousands of trashed ballots, widespread errors, delayed election results, and diminished voter confidence.

That’s why five states have banned ranked-choice voting in just the last two years—Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana. Only Maine and Alaska use it at the statewide level, where ranked-choice voting passed by slim margins through ballot initiatives that were heavily funded by special interests. Now, let’s dig deeper.

TRASHED BALLOTS

How does it happen?

  • When no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of tabulation, some voters’ ballots must be trashed to force a majority. This is not a flaw in the system, it is the system.
  • Rather than just voting for one candidate, voters must vote for (i.e., rank) all candidates to ensure that their ballots are counted and not trashed. This includes voting for candidates with whom a voter fundamentally disagrees.
  • When a voter selects only one candidate on their ballot, either as their first choice or for all choices, and that candidate is no longer in contention, their ballots are thrown in the trash.
  • Elections in Maine, Alaska, and New York City are examples of thousands of trashed ballots under ranked-choice voting. By throwing away these ballots, ranked-choice voting has erased their votes and left their voices unheard in the American democratic system.

Diminished Voter Confidence

Winners lose and losers win.

  • In Maine’s 2018 Second Congressional District election, more than 8,000 ballots were thrown in the trash. Bruce Poliquin (R) received 46.33 percent of the vote ahead of Jared Golden’s (D) 45.58 percent. But since Poliquin didn’t receive 50 percent, there was a second round of tabulation. The secretary of state threw out more than 8,000 ballots and Golden was declared the winner—but with only 49.2 percent of the total ballots cast.
  • In Alaska’s 2022 congressional special election, Republican candidates received 60 percent of the vote in the first round, but the Democrat won. Nearly 15,000 were trashed, and the Democrat won by a little more than 5,000 votes.

DELAYED ELECTION RESULTS

Multiple rounds of counting. Massive errors.

  • Imagine waiting nearly an entire month to know the results of your party’s primary election? It happened in New York. What if an error in your school board election wasn’t found until two months later, changing the outcome entirely? Look no further than Alameda County, California.

A CONFUSING BALLOT. A FORCED "CHOICE."

GROWING OPPOSITION TO THIS PARTISAN SCHEME

  • WEST VIRGINIA SECRETARY OF STATE MAC WARNER:
  • ARKANSAS STATE REP. MINDY MCALINDON:
  • MISSOURI STATE REP. BEN BAKER:

THE STATUS OF RANKED-CHOICE VOTING NATIONWIDE

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

STUDY OUR RESOURCES ON RANKED-CHOICE VOTING

  • RESEARCH PAPER:
    Ranked-Choice Voting: A Partisan Plot to Engineer Election Results

    View Paper »

HEY, GOP: DON'T BUY INTO DEMS' RANKED-CHOICE VOTING HYPE

OP-ED

By Madeline Malisa

Fresh off Democratic victories on Nov. 7, two US senators have a plan to ensure the left never loses again.

On Nov. 16, Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Angus King (I-Maine) introduced a bill to bribe state and local governments to embrace ranked-choice voting.

It’s a confusing system that undermines core democratic principles like straightforward elections and “one person, one vote.”

And it may well favor Democrats.

Read in New York Post

Ranked-Choice Voting Is The Monster Under The Bed Of American Elections

By Shawn Fleetwood

Democrats are using ranked-choice voting (RCV) to benefit their party and disenfranchise voters in elections across the country, a new report provided to The Federalist found.

Published by the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), the new analysis unearths how Democrats use the complexities associated with RCV to diminish confidence in elections among U.S. voters.

Read in The Federalist

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