Old Dominion News

The Virginia Senate recently considered Senate Bill 1380, which would legalize the Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). The bill was withdrawn due to logistical concerns from the Department of Elections, but others have concerns over what that would mean for Virginia's elections moving forward. RCV forces voters into making choices that may not accurately reflect majority consensus as nearly 60% of winners in RCV elections have not been decided by a majority vote.

In a press release, the Election Transparency Initiative expressed concerns with SB 1380, which "would legalize the Ranked Choice Voting scheme in presidential primaries. The RCV scheme has been a recipe for disaster, leading to confusion and disenfranchisement among voters—further undermining their confidence in election outcomes while protecting failed incumbents who have long-lost the confidence of voters."

"Democrats in the General Assembly along with former Gov. Ralph Northam systematically gutted election integrity in Virginia, making 60 changes to our state’s election laws and transforming them into some of the weakest in the nation. Now, anti-election integrity Democrats in Richmond want nothing more than to chip away at the remaining vestiges of fair, secure and transparent elections by convincing unwitting Republicans to go along," Election Transparency Initiative Chairman Ken Cuccinelli said, according to the press release. "Make no mistake, lawmakers should never give an inch on the private funding of elections, which was banned last year via a historic, anti-corruption law signed by Gov. Youngkin, and they should never allow a disastrous Ranked Choice Voting scheme—designed by the Left to destroy election integrity and preserve the status quo—to see the light of day."

The bill was pulled by its sponsor, Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath). The Richmond Times Dispatch reported that, "Deeds said that Department of Elections Commissioner Susan Beals dropped by his office and, when he asked her about his bill, she relayed that 'the state board of elections did not feel like they could technologically do this right now.'"

According to Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), RCV creates an artificial majority by eliminating votes of the lowest scoring candidates through a process called ballot exhaustion. This may silence the voices of those who do not rank every candidate, which includes candidates that the voter would not typically support. This leads to elections in which the highest overall vote-getter does not win the election. The FGA reported that "One study of Maine elections found that, of 98 recent RCV elections, 60% of RCV victors did not win by a majority of the total votes cast."

For voters who are familiar with plurality-based voting, it is important to understand that the candidate with the most first-choice votes after the initial round is not guaranteed to be elected because of RCV. NPR reported that in an extremely tight race in 2018 for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, Jared Golden trailed incumbent Congressman Bruce Poliquin by about 2,000 votes after the initial round of voting. Golden subsequently picked up second and third choice votes from those who initially voted for independents Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar. Ultimately Poliquin lost the election by 3,000 votes.