TPC Launches Digital Ad “Why RCV is wrong for America”
Why is RCV Wrong For America?
I. It’s Confusing
II. It’s Unfair
III. It Disenfranchises Voters
IV. It Favors Milquetoast Candidates
V. It Takes Too Long To Declare A Winner
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.
Simply stated, supporters of ranked-choice voting (RCV) believe it will produce a new era of pastel campaigns and a greater public acceptance of final results that yield crops of spineless candidates who won’t challenge the failed status quo. But for the struggling forgotten men and women who are looking for new leaders and innovative solutions, RCV is just one more way for elitists to further tilt the system in their favor.
The obvious truth is that RCV is complicated, difficult to understand, and relies on a counting process shrouded in mystery.
No wonder leaders on both sides of the political spectrum have raised concerns about RCV. According to Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, “People are starting to look nationally and say RCV ‘could be the answer.’ I think they need to be cautious about that. It’s very confusing.”
He continued, “Ninety-five percent of the people talking to me about our new ranked-choice voting system were saying how utterly confusing it was.” Senior NAACP official Hazel Dukes also castigated RCV, “It is voter suppression … I hope that the courts see that ranked choice voting is not right for democracy.”
Even in the best of circumstances, RCV runs the risk of disenfranchising voters. If a voter’s chosen candidates have been eliminated in the RCV process, these voters won’t have any say in the final vote. By its very design, RCV slows down the process of counting the votes and introduces an array of ambiguities into what should be a simple process of determining a clear winner.
RCV requires voters to place absolute trust in the vote-counters that they tabulate accurately everything in an uncertain process. So let’s defend the integrity of our elections, not undermine them through dangerous so-called reforms like RCV.
