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Ranked-Choice Voting: Congress's Three-Card Monty Sham
Imagine a slick hustler shuffling three cards on a street corner, dangling the queen as bait. You chase it, but the game's rigged—the real winner hides in the shuffle. That's ranked-choice voting (RCV), now peddled federally through S.3425 and H.R.6589, introduced December 10 by Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). These bills mandate RCV for all congressional elections by 2030, trampling state sovereignty and turning simple votes into a convoluted gamble.
As president of the Election Integrity Network and a former Maine town clerk, I administered RCV's debut in the chaotic 2018 Second Congressional District race. Bruce Poliquin led first-round votes, but after RCV's multi-week tabulation, Jared Golden flipped the win—triggering lawsuits and eroding trust. In the 2022 rematch with the same candidates, including a third-party spoiler seemingly planted to rig the math, Poliquin didn't want the post-election RCV count. Yet the state mandated it, squandering taxpayer dollars only to confirm the election-night leader. Why the waste? RCV's mandatory complexity exhausts ballots (up to 53% discarded), spikes errors tenfold, and hits vulnerable voters hardest—seniors, military, mail-ins—who can't fix mistakes on-site.
Cornell analyzed 182 RCV races: Over half produced non-majority winners. MIT warns of fraud risks via "ballot fingerprints" enabling vote-buying. Costs double, lines lengthen, audits become opaque. States reject this sham: In 2025, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and South Carolina banned RCV, joining 11 others for 17 total. Michigan clerks unanimously oppose it; their Fair Elections Institute report details disenfranchisement and corruption vulnerabilities. Alaska's top-four variant sidelined third parties; London's 2022 repeal favored "robust" traditional voting.
Don't let Congress force this three-card monty nationwide. Support H.R.3040, the Preventing Ranked Choice Corruption Act, to ban federal RCV mandates.
Urge lawmakers: Reject S.3425 and H.R.6589. Demand elections where one person, one vote counts plainly—no tricks.
Sharon Bemis
President, Election Integrity Network
Former Maine Election Administrator