It’s no secret that Republicans are at risk of losing the Senate on Nov. 3.
But what people may not realize is that, in Alaska and Maine, Democratic Senate candidates may win because of a scam known as ranked choice voting.
It’s a left-wing scheme that confuses voters, disenfranchises people, and undermines public trust in elections. Yet this unjust system could be decisive, and groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America want to mandate it nationwide.
Progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and hundreds of other mostly left-wing politicians have pushed ranked choice voting for years, with the promise that it will lead to fewer “extreme” candidates. Unlike normal voting, where you just choose one candidate, you can vote for every candidate, “ranking” them from most favorite to least. That’s true whether there are three candidates or 33.
Here’s the kicker: The candidate who gets the most votes doesn’t automatically win. And voters who didn’t rank every candidate risk their ballots being trashed by design. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the least popular candidate is eliminated, and anyone who ranked them first has their vote shifted to their second choice. The process repeats until a candidate gets a majority of the remaining votes, and if you didn’t rank candidates that far down the list, your ballot gets tossed out.
If that sounds confusing and unfair, that’s because it is. Ranked choice voting elections require complicated math and often take days or weeks to learn the winner.
Why do leftists love this system? Because they think it will stop Republicans from winning elections with a plurality of votes — i.e., less than 50%. Which brings us to this year’s Senate races in Alaska and Maine.
Alaska has used ranked choice voting for federal elections since 2022, and in that year’s special election, the Democratic candidate for the state’s only congressional seat won. Yet, Republicans received about 60% of the vote. Something similar could happen in this year’s Senate election, in which Democrat Mary Peltola is running against Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
How could ranked choice voting change this race? The answer involves a third-party candidate, who’s also named Dan Sullivan. He appears to be a left-wing plant, designed to trick voters into not supporting the current senator with the same name. If enough voters choose the second Dan Sullivan as their top choice, Sen. Sullivan may not get more than 50% of the vote. At that point, ranked choice voting would kick in, possibly swinging the election to Peltola, the Democrat.
A similar story could play out in Maine. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is in a tight race against Democrat Troy Jackson, but there are six write-in candidates running as well. There’s a good chance Collins gets the most votes but falls under the 50% threshold. Enter ranked choice voting, which would divvy up people’s second and third rankings and so on. Jackson could win in the end, even if he trails Collins in the initial and traditional vote.
Yet no matter who wins, voters lose.
The confusion inherent in ranked choice voting leaves many people scratching their heads. Even worse, this system can disenfranchise voters. If you don’t rank every candidate, your ballot may be tossed out as the votes are divvied up.
Jackson is already proof. Earlier this year, he found himself in a five-way race in Maine’s Democratic Primary for governor. Ten days later, in the third round of tabulation, 9,662 voters who supported Jackson had their ballots discarded. By the final round, nearly 24,000 ballots had been thrown out of the count. Keep in mind: These voters still voted fair and square, just not in the complicated and confusing way the state wants.
Similarly, in the 2024 race for Maine’s second congressional district, Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) ran against Austin Theriault in what was effectively a two-way race — a race that should not need a ranked choice tabulation. When the votes came in, Golden had a razor-thin lead of 196,189 to 194,030. Yet, there were more than 12,600 blank ballots that led the secretary of state to begin the cumbersome and time-consuming vote-ranking process. More than 11,000 ballots were ultimately trashed, delaying Golden’s victory by 10 days and sowing needless anger amongst the public.
HOW DEMOCRATS ARE PULLING A FAST ONE OVER ALASKA REPUBLICANS
This scam is increasingly being recognized for what it is, and to date, 19 states have banned ranked choice voting altogether. Alaskans will vote on a ban at the same time they vote in the Senate election. Yet, at least Alaskans have the chance to end this farce. Maine voters don’t, and the Democrat-controlled legislature has indicated its desire to expand this flawed system to more races, despite the state Supreme Court’s repeated rulings that ranked choice voting is unconstitutional for state offices in the general election. Nevertheless, Maine Democrats look set to keep pushing this farce, as are left-wing politicians in virtually every state, especially under the socialist banner.
What a shame. Ranked choice voting is a left-wing scam, and on Nov. 3, it may do exactly what its backers intended: Deliver the U.S. Senate to Democrats.
Madeline Malisa is the policy director at the Foundation for Government Accountability, where Andrew Bracy is director of government affairs data & operations.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
