Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has qualified for the Maine Presidential ballot in November and in doing so shows just how fraudulent claims in favor of Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) really are.
Supporters of RCV falsely promise it will reduce toxic partisanship, increase compromise, and eliminate extremism from our elections, but in reality the costly, confusing, and complex voting practice has been an unmitigated disaster wherever implemented.
RCV requires a voter to rank each candidate on the basis of ‘least bad’ by assigning a numerical designation to the candidate the voter favors most to the candidate the voter favors least. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and each ballot cast for that candidate is reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
What happens when a voter does not rank every candidate, and his choices are eliminated? The ballot is deemed ‘exhausted’ and is thrown out. Meaning, as designed RCV manufactures a majority winner by routinely discarding thousands of ballots so candidates need only win a majority of the remaining votes, not a majority of all votes cast.
Let’s look at a potential outcome in Maine in which RFK, Jr. gets enough votes to keep either Trump or Harris from winning a majority in the first round. Say 48% of Maine voters choose Trump and list RFK Jr. as their second choice, and 48% of Harris voters list RFK Jr. as their second choice. Given the animosity between Democrats and Republicans, many voters fail to list a third choice.
So who wins the election? Not RFK Jr., who under this scenario upwards of 90% of voters chose as a reasonable compromise. As the last place finisher, he’s already been eliminated. Whoever the RFK Jr. voters chose as their second-place choice wins the election.
Who loses the election? The thousands of disenfranchised voters of Maine whose ballots were thrown out to satisfy the RCV system employed invariably to push our politics to the Left.
But Maine has been witness to the RCV catastrophe already. In the state’s 2018 Maine congressional race, then-incumbent GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin lost to Democrat Jared Golden despite Poliquin winning the most votes in the first round of voting. In fact, more than 8,000 ballots were deemed “exhausted” and thrown out because voters didn’t list a choice vote—thus manufacturing a “majority” for Poliquin’s challenger.
There are changes to our elections that would make it easy to vote and harder to cheat, such as Voter ID, clean and updated voter rolls, preventing non-citizens from voting, strict adherence to voting laws, eliminating unmanned and unmonitored drop boxes, and so much more.
But the RCV scheme is never workable. Let’s hope other states can learn from Maine’s mistake.
Ken Cuccinelli is the former Virginia Attorney General and Acting Deputy Sectary of the Department of Homeland Security and is now leading the Election Transparency Initiative.
Reprinted with permission from Townhall.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
In countries in western Europe that employ RCV, the system was adopted years ago to ensure that candidates of fringe, far-left parties would retain a meaningful percentage of seats, and thus exert an outsized influence of any resulting coalition government formed. That is why you will find almost all western European governments today are now left of center or far left.
Candidates from such parties as the Green Party, the various sub fractions of far left socialist and communist parties and others all rely on RCV to maintain their seats at the governing table. In many cases, all these far-left groups need to get their way on an issue is to threaten to pull out of the coalition government to get their way. It is the ultimate tail wagging the dog scenario. Democrats here saw how effective RCV was in Europe at tilting control of governments towards the left, which is why they pushed to introduce it here in the United States a few years back. It has of course been a disaster wherever it was adopted.
Isn’t ranked election UnConstitutional? We have the electoral to give each state an equal chance of picking our candidates and a say of who our elected leaders will be. Going with this ranked election in Maine would seem detrimental to their state when the population of NY or CA would swallow their meager votes. Our forefathers were so far ahead in their thinking compared to our very “elite educated,” thinkers of today.
Thank God for their Wisdom when the US Constitution was written!
The American people must turn up the heat on this one. We must have free and fair elections and there’s much evidence that the system is corrupt. Make demands to clean up the system prior to the 2024 election. Click on here to learn what you can do. protectthevote.com
Elections can be compared to good management in the sense that planning, organization and coordination of what is planned and organized is done to make sure that scheduling is accurate , that the goods or services arrive at the right place at the right time.All of those procedures depend on clear, intelligent communication. This rank choice voting racket has no place in a system that values honesty, and values freedom. Straight talk — reflects straight ( honest ) thinking. Rank choice voting is a good example of speaking and thinking that is twisted as a corkscrew. Praise for Ken Cuccinelli for this article , it is a great example of Straight Talk and much appreciated. Another comparison could be made with mathematics and this rank choice voting stuff — mathematics is a form of reasoning and if done with integrity should not be complicated — it should be clear and understandable — the terminology used has much to do with that aspect of mathematics .Another good place for straight talking — straight thinking.
Say whatever you want about this screwy method, but in the end it’s just another method used by the Democrats to cheat and steal an election.
RCV is a coverup for cheating as now there is no way to verify the number of voters vs votes cast.
One voter one vote!
Let’s be clear every legal citizen has the right to vote, but all elections should require voter identification. All parties must be registered as judges to count the votes. No one gets excluded. Except for military all mail ballots should be excluded. Paper ballots or computer votes must be securely sealed so no tampering can occur. Early at courthouses only otherwise go to your local election polling place
No ID No Vote
The internet is not a good idea. That would be an easy way to cheat. It was done in 2020.
RCV is a direct “castration” of one voter one vote; this system gives some four votes while giving others less including zero. Talk about CHEATING.
RCV is another scheme by democrats to steal elections. If they would work as hard at implementing policies that help the average American people would vote for them. Instead they spend all their time trying to figure out how to cheat. And they say Republicans are destroying democracy. Democrats want to burn this nation to the ground just so they can rule over the ashes. The Democrat Party is truly the epitome of evil
RFK, Jr. isn’t going to be on ticket much longer anyways. He should’ve came out more antisemitic; then Biden disgruntles might have liked him more.
Alaska voted this way to get Palin off the ballot and vote in Murkowski. It is a disaster and extremely unfair to all the candidates. It should be changed. One person, one vote is the only fair way to elect officials.
Lee Harvey Oswald: dude your nephew is crazy
jfk: I know maybe you should have saved yourself him right?
“both laugh”