Push for ranked-choice voting is spreading across the U.S., despite bipartisan concerns

Elected officials across the political spectrum and local Democratic and Republican parties are fighting against ranked-choice voting (RCV) as the election system will be considered by voters in multiple states next year.

RCV is an election process being introduced in states across the country, but is facing pushback from both sides of the political aisle, including efforts to ban it. With RCV, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then a runoff system is triggered. When voters cast their ballots, they rank each candidate in order of first-to-last.

If one candidate doesn't reach the 50% plus-one vote threshold, then the candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes is eliminated, then second-choice votes from those who voted for the last-place finisher are reallocated among the remaining candidates and tallied – in a process that continues until a candidate receives the majority of the vote.

RCV proponents argue that the system results in representative outcomes and majority rule, incentivizes positive campaigning, allows for more voter choice, and saves money when replacing preliminaries or runoffs, according to pro-RCV organization FairVote.

The first prob w/this is you have to rank ALL candidates, including those of parties you may not like, and rank accordingly. For most, the ranking of all but the top couple of candidates will be arbitrary.

I.e. The ticket will not just have a bunch of R and D candidates, but independents or even other parties. Recognize that there will be multiple Rs, Ds, and Is.

Let’s say, you are usually for R, against D, and dismiss out of hand the I’s. So you go list your R candidates only on the ballot.

If it turns out all the R’s lose, since you did NOT rank ALL candidates, you now have no vote in the D vs I runoff.

The next election, you’ve got it beaten into your head you need to rank ALL, but how to do? How good of a comparison are you going to make against all those candidates you’re not really interested in? Something may come up in the elimination rounds that changes your mind per the lower choice candidates, especially since those folks will garner more media attention in the runoff days.

So, a big problem w/RCV is that it forces voters to rank ALL candidates PERFECTLY based on a certain set of available candidates, which is not going to happen.

The reality is that the voter’s choice of ranking will change depending on who is left on the battlefield. The only chance to preclude that is to make a PERFECT ranking of candidates up front because the eliminations are handled automatically.

But there is no way to do that. Let’s say I’m going for the independents. My ranking may change depending on who actually gets the most votes.

I.e., say there are 2 Rs, 2 Ds and 2 Is. Of the Is, R voters generally would prefer I #1 but D voters generally would prefer I #2. Let’s also say, I like both sides of the aisle to “foster a spirit of cooperation”.

So say I really want an I and my favorite is #1, I’ll tolerate an R, and I don’t like the Ds. I also think the R will beat the Ds easy.

So I vote for my I #1 but to my surprise, a D takes the most votes. Had I actually known in advance that would be the case, I would’ve selected I #2 as my top choice since the Ds hate I #1 so much.

Even though I “learned my lesson” last time and ranked all candidates, I am still screwed.

So the ultimate problem w/RCV is that not only must you perfectly rank all candidates, you must also be PSYCHIC -knowing in advance who tops it in the first round. Indeed, you have to know the full sequence in which elimination will occur.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.