FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 15, 2024
New law achieves more fair, honest, and transparent elections
Arlington, VA – A bill to prohibit Ranked-Choice Voting in Kentucky is now law after Democrat governor Andy Beshear’s veto of H.B. 44 was overridden by the state’s legislature with two-thirds majority support in the House and Senate.
The bill, which also helps remove foreign citizens from voter registration records and makes important improvements to list maintenance, stipulates that a “voting method that allows electors to rank candidates for an office in order of preference and has ballots cast to be tabulated in multiple rounds following the elimination of a candidate until a single candidate attains a majority shall not be used in determining the election or nomination of any candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office in this state.”
“Any existing or future ordinance enacted or adopted by a county, municipality, or any other local governmental entity which conflicts with this section shall be void,” the bill adds.
Ranked-Choice Voting, also known as ‘Instant-Runoff Voting’ and ‘Preferential Voting,’ is a scheme that has made voting more confusing and 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, Ranked-Choice Voting manufactures a majority winner, in part, 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 and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued the following statement:
“We thank the General Assembly, the bill’s sponsor Rep. Hodgson, and Secretary of State Adams for protecting the right to vote by advancing this critical legislation despite the governor’s politically motivated veto. Only U.S. citizens should decide the outcome of U.S. elections—an overwhelmingly obvious and popular position among voters of virtually every demographic—but the reality is that foreign citizens can and do find their way onto the voter rolls.
“The disastrous Ranked-Choice Voting scheme, which is intended to dramatically push our politics to the Left, is the antithesis of Election Integrity and the ideal of one person, one vote counted fairly, equally, and honestly. Ranked-Choice Voting must always be rejected and we’re grateful that Kentucky has join more than two dozen states to ban its use.”
Ranked-Choice Voting 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 part of how Ranked-Choice Voting 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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