As ranked-choice voting gains momentum across the U.S., the campaign supporting the system is funded by a few liberal dark money groups run by mega-donors who seek to replace the influence of political parties with their own, according to Honest Election Project Action, (HEPA) an election integrity advocate.
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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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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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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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The American Legislative Exchange Council held their national annual conference in Scottsdale last week, which included a pre-session for legislators with the Honest Elections Project (HEP). HEP is focusing on three issues relating to elections currently, and is proposing draft model legislation that legislators can introduce on a few issues. One is Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), which is gearing up to be a huge fight on the 2024 ballot in Arizona.
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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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A group of leading election fraud deniers spoke at an event in downtown Phoenix put on by the civic organization Arizona Talks. The forum was moderated by Steve Goldstein, a longtime PBS host who recently moved on to join Save Democracy AZ, which is pushing open primaries. The panelists consisted of failed Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, and Jackie Salit, president of Independent Voting.
Goldstein said he supports rank-choice voting. He said since the Arizona Legislature isn’t getting the reforms passed that he wants, he recommends a version of ranked-choice voting to select legislators and members of Congress since he said their seats are gerrymandered — that picks the top two for those offices. He complained that members of the two parties no longer cross the aisle to vote with the other side, implying that the Republicans in the legislature aren’t compromising as much as they used to. The 2023 legislature is one of the most conservative in recent years, with several brand-new legislators scoring at the top of conservative ratings.
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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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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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Camelback Strategy Group (CSG), a consulting firm associated with the moderate and McCain wing of the Republican Party, appears to be aligning itself with an effort to institute ranked-choice voting in Arizona. Matt Kenney, a partner and vice president with the group and former associate of the late Sen. John McCain, sent an email from his CSG account on April 24 to undisclosed recipients stating that Save Democracy Arizona is looking for a political director to oversee a ballot initiative effort for ranked-choice voting.
The Kari Lake War Room Twitter account tweeted a copy of the email, stating, “RINO Consulting firm Camelback Strategies goes all in for Ranked Choice Voting. They can’t get their establishment candidates elected anymore. So they’re just going to rig the primaries. This would be the death of free & fair elections in Arizona. And it must be stopped.”
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The Arizona State Senate passed more legislation Tuesday aimed at strengthening Arizona’s elections, starting with House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 2033, sponsored by State Representative Austin Smith (R-Suprise).
“Thank you to the @AZSenateGOP for voting out HCR2033. A bigger thank you to all the grassroots activists who worked so hard to make this happen. Very grateful for you all,” Smith tweeted. “This constitutional referral to protect our party primaries and girding us against radical experimental election systems that disenfranchise voters such as ‘ranked choice voting.'”
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The Arizona Freedom Caucus (AFC) released a statement Tuesday, allowing several members to speak out against Ranked Choice Voting (RVC) in Arizona and promote two bills that would prohibit it in the state.
“RCV may not always result in the candidate with the most first-choice votes winning the election,” said AFC Member Senator Anthony Kern (R-Glendale). “I am aware that there are groups in Arizona advocating for RCV, but this will only lead to chaos, and we must ensure that our constituents have easy and fair access to the ballot box.”
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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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The Arizona State Senate Committee on Elections, chaired by Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff), convened Monday to discuss several proposed Senate Bills (SB) to strengthen Arizona’s Elections. One of those, SB 1265, sponsored by Sen. Anthony Kern (R-Glendale), presumptively restricts the implementation of a ranked choice voting (RCV) system in Arizona.
“To me, there enough questions out there, as you guys [the committee] have probably heard for the last three or four hours, on our current elections system without muddying the waters even more with a ranked choice voting,” said Kern while speaking at the meeting.
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With Democrats taking over the top leadership positions in Arizona, progressives are boldly moving onto their next steps in the state. Save Democracy Arizona (SDA) is looking into getting a ballot initiative that would open up primary elections to everyone and possibly implement ranked choice voting. The new group is composed of Democrats and moderate Republicans who seek to stop conservative Republicans from getting elected to office.
Arizona has a semi-closed primary system, meaning Republicans and Democrats automatically receive a ballot in the primary, but independents and other political parties must request one of those. With an open primary, any voter can vote with any party ballot. Save Democracy executive board member Sarah Brown Smallhouse explained why the group wants the change. “Because so few people (request a ballot), we almost have closed primaries,” she said. In recent years, independents have outnumbered both Republicans and Democrats in much of the state.
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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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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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The election for the next mayor of New York City is in a state of confusion after the city’s board of elections released a new tally late Tuesday in the Democratic primary, then abruptly removed the tabulations citing a “discrepancy” due to counting thousands of test ballots.
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