Argument against Proposition 3 – Ranked Choice Voting (RCV)

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), the latest fashion in election tinkering, is unneeded in our county. Our current system works well and our local elections officials do a tremendous job leading a process that is well respected and garners high voter turnout. In the rare instance that there are more than two candidates for local elections, the primary election promotes the top two vote getters to the November election. Very simple and clear and does not need a computer to analyze intent, redistribute votes of the candidate who is dropped off and declare a winner, according to some algorithm that could be manipulated. Our voters and candidates deserve a clearly and immediately understandable vote counting system, not one that involves a complicated process of ranking candidates and possibly repeating vote counts by a computer, leading to possible mischief.

This will cause confusion in the election process during times when elections results are under suspicion and will not enhance voter confidence.

Additionally, this poorly conceived proposition does not describe any particular form of RCV (in fact there is more than one) and it’s “out of area” promoters and supporters are promising a “fix” but in reality, the result will be confusion, surprise, distrust, and further alienation from our democratic institutions.

There are many loose ends as this proposal is dependent on when and what the State legislature actually does with RCV. Our county cannot itself initiate RCV.

Please REJECT Proposition 3

Tony P Ghazel
Bill Appel
Tom Starr
Paul Dossett

Link to read more on RCV:

https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/ranked-choice-voting-bad-choice