By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2024-11-25 22:47:00 | Updated at 2024-11-26 00:21:59
2 hours ago
The ranked-choice voting racket is finally being recognized as a massive fraud — and voters are rejecting it nationwide.
That’s one of the untold stories of the latest election.
In recent years, numerous states and cities, including New York City, have enacted ranked-choice voting, which forces voters to ditch the tried-and-true system of voting for one candidate. Instead, they have to list every candidate from favorite to least favorite.
If no candidate gets a majority, then bureaucrats divvy up people’s backup choices until someone clears 50%.
Voters were told this system would make elections less polarizing.
In reality, ranked-choice voting is a scheme pushed largely by Democrats to elect more Democrats, and it undermines trust in elections by making voting far more confusing.
That’s why so many Americans voted against ranked-choice voting on Nov. 5.
All told, eight states had ballot initiatives on the issue. In four of them — Nevada, Colorado, Oregon and Idaho — voters were directly asked to pass ranked-choice voting. In two others — Arizona and Montana — voters faced ballot measures that would have likely led to this scheme.
In all of those six, voters said no, most of them by overwhelming margins.
And in Missouri, voters banned the state from ever passing ranked-choice voting.
The only major place where ranked-choice voting won on Election Day was Washington, DC, where residents voted to implement it for city races.
And in Alaska, an effort to repeal this broken system failed by less than 1,000 votes.
This nationwide rejection came despite massive funding from liberal groups to save it.
All told, activists spent a staggering $124 million to pass or defend ranked-choice voting; opponents spent just $3.4 million.
Voters didn’t buy what the activists were selling because they’ve already seen that ranked-choice voting is a disaster.
The stories are almost too numerous to count: In Maine and Alaska, this convoluted system has enabled Democrats to win congressional races, even though Republican candidates got the most initial votes.
It also leads to ballots being thrown out because some voters don’t list every candidate — a blatant form of disenfranchisement.
Finally, ranked-choice voting can draw out the ballot counting, leading to weeks or even months of uncertainty.
None of this is good for trust in American elections.
In fact, one fiasco played out in the 2024 election. In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, neither the Democrat nor the Republican got more than 50% of the vote on Nov. 5.
But nobody else was on the ballot, and under ranked-choice voting, that means neither candidate could win.
The state had to look at the 12,000-plus ballots that voters deliberately left blank, seeing if they listed a second choice.
The Democrat incumbent was eventually deemed the winner, but now the race is headed for a recount.
Regular voting would’ve meant this crucial race would’ve been called on Election Day.
No wonder voters in so many states rejected this chaos and confusion. It certainly doesn’t instill trust in the system.
The question now is: When will states like Maine and cities like New York show the same wisdom?
And when will more states ban ranked-choice voting altogether, as 11 have now done?
New York should act before the mayoral election next year. The city already saw the problems with ranked-choice voting when Eric Adams ran for mayor in 2021. In the primary election, it took eight rounds of counting before he was declared the winner.
The results weren’t certified for nearly a month because officials were confused about which ballots to count.
When the dust finally cleared, voters learned that over 140,000 ballots — about 15% of the total — were tossed, in effect, after the first rounds because voters didn’t rank enough candidates for their ballots to make it to the final counts.
But they shouldn’t have had to rank every candidate, many of whom they surely disliked. Elections make the most sense when you only have to vote for one person.
Whether it’s New York or anywhere else, the activists pushing ranked-choice voting will fight tooth and nail to keep it in place and even expand it, regardless of the recent election results.
But voters will surely continue to see through this farce.
Ranked-choice voting ruins elections.
The eight states that just rejected it won’t be the last.
Madeline Malisa, former chief counsel to Maine Gov. Paul LePage, is senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
