RANKED CHOICE VOTING IS A DISASTER
What is Ranked Choice Voting?
American elections are traditionally and almost universally run using the “one-person, one-vote” system. When voters cast their ballots, they pick a single candidate in each race, and the candidate with the highest number of votes wins.
Under Ranked-Choice Voting, voters rank the candidates. If no candidate wins a majority, the race goes into multiple rounds of what is referred to as “instant run-off voting” until one candidate receives more than 50 percent of the remaining votes. It is anything but “instant” though—it is a complex process that has taken days or weeks in some cases. Using Ranked Choice Voting, candidates who lost in the first round can win the election after multiple rounds of tabulation.
Democrats and leftists have successfully pushed Ranked Choice Voting in Maine and Alaska through ballot initiatives and implemented Ranked Choice Voting in cities across the country, including New York, San Francisco, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Even members of America’s Communist Party support it!
The bottom line is that Ranked Choice Voting is a plot to engineer election results to turn Idaho blue. Idaho’s Republican Party opposes Ranked Choice Voting because it leads to thousands of trashed ballots, widespread errors, delayed election results, confusing ballots and diminished voter confidence. Vote NO on Proposition 1. Just say, “NO” to Ranked Choice Voting!
Trashed Ballots
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 Means 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 an election wasn’t found until two months later, changing the outcome entirely? Look no further than Alameda County, California. Nearly two months after November’s election, Alameda County announced that it systematically counted ballots wrong due to a ranked choice programming error. The third-place finisher had actually won the Oakland School board election.
A Confusing Ballot
In some years, Idaho has as many as 20 races on the November ballot. (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State School Superintendent, State Treasurer, State Comptroller, State Attorney General, Congressional Representative, United States Senator, two Legislative Representatives, State Senator, two County Commissioners, County Coroner, County Prosecutor, County Treasurer, County Clerk, County Sheriff, and County Assessor.)
Prop 1 allows as many as four candidates for each race. This means that you could have as many as 80 votes to cast—each ranked pursuant to your order of priority. Now that’s confusing!
Don’t be fooled! Here’s a short video that explains the scam known as “Ranked Choice Voting”:
