(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ranked-choice voting is not the way to solve what ails the Republic – Daily Montanan [1] ['More From Author', 'January', 'Jim Smith'] Date: 2024-01-20 The Daily Montanan ran an article on Dec. 30, concerning ranked choice voting. Sorry, folks, but ranked choice voting is not going to solve any of the current problems with elections, Congress, civil discourse or democracy in the United States. Believing this is the case is like thinking that if you just put four more aces in the deck of cards, you’ll have a better chance of winning when you’re playing poker with card sharks. Why? Because too many factors already rig the game. First, the two main parties, Republicans and Democrats, have made it incredibly onerous to get another party’s candidates on the ballot. They have set up a series of hurdles in every state for getting enough signatures to put a third party on the ballot, and compounded this with the requirements of where and who those signing have to live and when they have voted. In Montana a third party’s qualifying petition must be signed by a number of registered voters equal to at least 5 percent of the total votes cast for the successful candidate for governor in the most recent general election, or 5,000 electors, whichever is less. This number must include registered voters in more than one-third of the legislative districts equal to at least 5 percent of the total votes cast for the successful candidate for governor at the last general election in those districts, or 150 electors in those districts, whichever is less. If the third-party candidate does not receive enough votes in the election, the party has to go through this all over again for the next election. A daunting task which is repeated in all 50 states, each with its own unique requirements. Secondly, until big, dark money is removed from the political scene, ranked-choice voiting will make no difference. Overturning the Citizens United decision, which made corporations people and money into free speech has allowed literally billions of dollars to be spent on election at all levels to further regressive and anti-democratic candidates and legislation. And these super-PAC organizations do not have to disclose their sources of money or how much they have spent on any election. These folks know who they want to back and the millions will go towards backing them and we’ll all be inundated with more TV, ads, radio spots and robocalls than ever before, and candidates who represent the interests of big corporations and the wealthy. Thirdly, ranked-choice voting turns democracy upside down. Instead of electing the most popular candidate, you end up electing the least unpopular candidate. If no one gets 50 percent of the vote in the first round, a candidate who came in fourth or fifth in the first round could win because they got 50 percent of the second choice votes. This has actually happened a couple of times in elections where RCV has been tried. Also, if the voter only marks their vote for one candidate, and doesn’t choose to mark a second, third, fourth choice their ballot is thrown out during the next rounds of tallying up the votes, essentially disenfranchising them as a voter. Fourthly, ranked-choice voting will, by all predictions, increase voter apathy. In the U.S. one out of three eligible voters do not vote in any election, local state, or national. Except for the 2022 national election, the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote hovers around 54 percent. Creating a system that is more complex to understand, implement and process is not going to build more trust in the election system, or bring more voters to the polls. Lastly, proponents of ranked-choice voting say that the candidates running for office will be more “middle of the road” which is political speak for more conservative. Right now this country needs candidates who are going to solve our vast array of social, economic and ecological problems, not people who are happy with the status quo. We don’t need more out-of-state millionaire transplants in Montana politics, and we don’t need more self-serving politicians in Washington. Ranked-choice voting is a false solution and a false hope. Our democracy is in trouble, but this is not the answer. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/01/20/ranked-choice-voting-is-not-the-way-to-solve-what-ails-the-republic/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/