Ranked-Choice Voting Proves to Be Lightning Rod Issue in Several States

Bills to ban ranked-choice voting are causing passionate debate over a method to cast ballots that some say is fairer and some say is confusing and could lower voter turnout.

Ranked-choice voting allows people to rank the candidates, with “one” being their favorite. The votes are tallied in rounds. After the first round, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated. The voter’s second preference is then added to the tally. The process continues until a winner is determined.

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Election Integrity Watchdog Recommends 14 Reforms for States to Improve Election Security

People Voting

As the 2024 election cycle begins, the Honest Elections Project releases its report on 14 election reforms that states should make to protect the integrity of elections. 

With the 2024 presidential primary elections underway, a bipartisan election integrity watchdog has released its updated report on election reforms that they say will help secure their elections. Some of these reforms have been considered or implemented in various states since the 2020 presidential election, during which there were numerous irregularities and inequities. 

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Connecticut’s Democrat AG Shuns Ranked Choice Voting

William Tong

The election process known as ranked choice voting isn’t compatible with one of the oldest state constitutions in America, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, says. 

Tong released an 11-page legal opinion Tuesday stating that the system of voting, which allows voters to rank their choices of candidates, violates at least two standing provisions of the Connecticut Constitution. The state’s attorney general said it was a “close call,” however.

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Ranked Choice Voting Disenfranchises Minorities, Though Favored by Left, Study Finds

Voting Booths

Ranked choice voting, in which voters rank candidates on a ballot rather than choose one, may harm black and Native American voters disproportionately, according to a new study by a Princeton University professor. 

Minority candidates also may be undercut by ranked choice voting, said Nolan McCarty, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and vice dean for academic assessment.

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Commentary: Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin Are Wrong About Ranked-Choice Voting

U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney recently praised Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), lauding it respectively as “mesmerizing…we should do it” and “a superior way to proceed.” But the two lawmakers are wrong.

Their statements might ring true if they understood they are endorsing a system that encourages fringe candidates and skews election outcomes.

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Election Integrity Advocates Fight Against ‘Confusing’ Ranked-Choice Voting Pushed by Left

As ranked-choice voting gains momentum, election integrity advocates are fighting back over what the call a “confusing” voting system that they say would give the left more power.

Ranked-choice voting is an election process being introduced across the country, amid pushback from some states, including efforts to ban it.

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New Study Identifies Eight Reforms that Took Florida’s Election Day from ‘Worst to First’

Florida elections have come a long way since the “hanging chad” debacle of 2000. During the 2022 midterms, the state reported the results of all elections within two hours of polls closing, and a new report examines the election law changes that have been credited for the turnaround.

The 2000 presidential election between then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore was decided by the 25 electoral votes from Florida, which didn’t announce its results until five weeks after Election Day.

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Commentary: Mayor Derides Ranked-Choice Voting Pilot Program Failure as Know-it-All Legislators Seek to Expand the Program

A “guinea pig.” That is what Sandy, Utah Mayor Monica Zoltanski said that “ranked-choice voting” (RCV) made of her hometown. The town opted into Utah’s controversial RCV pilot program, but the experiment has not gone well. The cost-saving promised by proponents never materialized, but the real alarm bells should have sounded when the experiment produced voter confusion and voter disengagement.

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Commentary: Ranked-Choice Voting Is Just Another Way of Letting Elites Tilt the System in Their Favor

Americans want honest, straightforward and fair elections that they can trust. Regardless of whether candidates win or lose, voters deserve far better than the incompetence, mismanagement and multi-week delays in counting votes that we’re seeing in so many states today. So, at a time when trust in elections is at an all-time low, why are some establishment Republicans teaming up with Democrats to push a complex, confusing and painfully slow method of voting in America?

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FEC Records Show Tight Financial Contest Between Democrat Incumbent and Republican Challenger in Race for Maine’s Second Congressional District

Bruce Poliquin and Jared Golden

Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records show a tight financial contest between incumbent Democrat U.S. Representative Jared Golden and the nearest Republican challenger, former U.S. Representative Bruce Poliquin, in the race for Maine’s Second Congressional district.

As of the December 31, 2021 filing deadline, Golden has raised $2,136,842.68 for the 2022 election cycle and has $1,426,268.38 on hand. Republican challenger Poliquin has raised $1,482,065.91 and has $1,397,129.24 cash on hand in the bank. That’s a cash on hand edge for Golden of less than $30,000, a paltry sum in a highly competitive congressional race.

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