Ranked Choice Voting
Ranked Choice Voting:
Is confusing and difficult to explain or understand.
Is impossible to audit or recount an election.
Removes local county clerks from control of the election.
Delays election results.
Has higher costs –education, upgrading equipment, additional processing and printing costs due to multiple ballots.
Disenfranchises voters if they vote traditionally for their 1st choice candidate that gets eliminated in the first round. Their vote is lost and won’t count if no winner in round 1.
Discards some votes and voters and discourages voting.
Makes it possible for the candidate with the most votes in the first round to still lose the election.
Makes it impossible to have a clear winner, causing run off elections
HOW DOES
RCV
VOTING WORK?
Candidates are ranked whether there are 3 or 35. When votes are counted a candidate wins the vote if greater than 50%. If not a majority, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. Second place choices are redistributed to all the candidates.
Voters rank candidates in order of preference. Fill in one circle per candidate and one circle per choice.
This process continues until one wins with a majority in a round.
THE ALASKA EXPERIENCE
Since RCV, many firsts in Alaska’s history:
Costs grew 328% (2010-2020) with RCV. ($11,093,006)
20x what was budgeted for voter education (most expensive ever).
The lowest voter turnout using RCV and jungle primary for the first time.
A Democrat won U.S. Senate (with the lowest percentage of the vote).
Nearly 60% voted for a Republican in the U.S. House race multiple times and yet a Democrat won.
In 2020, five third-party candidates ran for a U.S. Senate general election. That went to zero 3rd party in 2022.
Number of candidates increased by 700% switching from a closed primary system to a jungle primary system.
Alaska is currently trying to repeal RCV.
Additional Resources