FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 31, 2024
RCV designed to cement Left-wing control by disenfranchising voters
Washington, D.C. – The Georgia State Senate has approved legislation to prohibit elections from being decided by the confusing, complex, and costly system of Ranked-Choice Voting, also known as ‘Instant-Runoff Voting’ and ‘preferential voting.’
Importantly, Senate Bill 355 stipulates that RCV “shall not be used in determining the election or nomination of any candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office.”
READ ETI’s COMMITTEE TESTIMONY | READ HEP’s COMMITTEE TESTIMONY
RCV is a scheme that has made voting more difficult, reduced transparency, and put confidence and certainty at risk when implemented in public elections, with horror stories in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, New York, Utah, Virginia and elsewhere.
As designed, RCV manufactures a majority winner by routinely ‘exhausting’—or throwing out—thousands of ballots so candidates need only win a majority of the remaining votes, not a majority of all votes cast.
National Chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative (ETI) and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued the following statement:
“The attempted takeover of our elections didn’t stop with Washington Democrats’ epically failed H.R. 1 bill or the ‘Zuckerbucks’ voter turnout scheme now banned by over two-dozen states. Left-wing, anti-Election Integrity megadonors are financing a nationwide campaign to promote the disastrous RCV system intended to dramatically push our politics to the Left, to elevate Left-leaning politicians, and to weaken political parties to their benefit.
“Now more than ever we need to protect the right to vote in free and fair elections voters can trust, but the RCV scheme does precisely the opposite. It is an Election Integrity wrecking ball, is never workable and should always be prohibited. Without delay, we urge the House to avert an epidemic of disenfranchised voters whose ballots no longer are counted fairly and equally by banning RCV in Georgia once and for all.”
Executive Director of Honest Elections Project Action (HEP Action) and co-Chair of the national Stop RCV coalition Jason Snead issued the following statement:
“Ranked-choice voting is the next Left-wing scheme to remake elections for political advantage. RCV’s track record is a litany of failed promises. RCV makes it harder to vote, harder to count votes, and harder to trust the results of elections. Numerous places that have experimented with RCV have repealed it. Research shows it discourages voting and disenfranchises voters. No matter what you call it—RCV, Final-Five, or Instant Runoff Voting—ranked choice voting puts public confidence in elections at risk.
“None of that is stopping the Left, though. Liberal megadonors are spending tens of millions of dollars to push California-style jungle primaries and RCV on states across the country. If they succeed, 2024 may be the year the Left permanently remakes elections to advance its own agenda. I applaud states like Georgia for acting to stop the spread of RCV. We should always be working to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat, and the clearest way to do that is to ban RCV.”
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. This is how RCV manufactures a majority winner.
Provided here is a comprehensive list of RCV horror stories.
Visit StopRCV.com to learn more, or view our fact sheet.
The Election Transparency Initiative, a partnership between the American Principles Project (APP) and Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America, was organized to combat federal H.R. 1 and H.R. 4 legislation and advocate for state-based election reforms that voters can trust.
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