First of all, if three candidates are running and voters cast ballots for their first-choice
candidate, as well as second and third choices; if one candidate receives a majority
of the first-choice votes, that person DOES NOT win unless he has 50% of the vote.
RANK CHOICE VOTING IS NOT A POPULAR VOTE!
If no one receives 50% in the first round of voting the candidate with the fewest first
choice votes is eliminated and all the voters who had that losing candidate down as
their first choice, gets their second-choice votes assigned to the other two
candidates. THIS IS NOT ONE PERSON ONE VOTE!
A hypothetical election among three candidates to illustrate: In round one Julie gets
39% of the vote Bob gets 38% , and Greg gets 23% of the votes. Since no one reached
50% of the vote, Greg is eliminated, and his votes are divided up. So, everyone that
voted for the loser gets their second choice added to the other candidates. After the
votes are sent away to a tabulation center (most local counties do not have
tabulators to count RCV) the retabulated votes come back ( THIS MAY TAKE DAYS
EVEN WEEEKS). Bob gets another 13% ( 51% total)in second-choice votes form Greg,
and Julie gets an extra 10% in second-choice votes ( 49% total). The winner would
not be Julie who received the majority of the votes or was the popular vote getter on
the first round, but the winner would be Bob with 51% of the votes on the second
round.
Ranked Choice Voting exacerbates economic and racial disparities. Many votes may
be thrown out and not counted. According to, the policy director of American Civil
Liberties Unions of Kansas, “In Minneapolis, for example, nearly 10% of ranked
choice ballots were not counted, most of these in low-income communities of color.
Other municipalities have seen similar effects.”
RCV is overly complicated, confusing, and deprives voters of a genuinely
informed choice in our elections.