Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is Too Confusing.

Voters Will Not Trust the Results in a Close Election

May 18, 2025

Canada just had an election. Nineteen million people voted. Everyone presented voter ID. There were no computers. There were few mail-in ballots. There were no drop boxes. There was no ballot harvesting. The paper ballots were all counted by hand and the results sent to the appropriate agencies. The results were totaled. The same evening as the day of the election, it was announced that the Liberals won and the Conservatives lost. Neither side questioned the result. And life went on.

How quaint.

But not in the United States. Policy leaders have allowed mail-in ballots, voting without voter ID, early voting for as much as six weeks and incomprehensible computer software to count the ballots. California’s election encompassed over a two-month period in 2024!

The latest voting “reform” being promoted is Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). In Connecticut, The Governor’s Commission on RCV recommended this be permitted as an option in local and primary elections.

Example of a RCV ballot with instructions

There are many arguments against RCV, my favorites being written by the former Republican nominee for the Secretary of the State in Connecticut, Dominic Rapini. I will not repeat his lucid arguments.

Rather, I will simply give an example of how RCV works and let the reader decide whether we want to gamble our democracy on this system.

With RCV, voters do not only vote for one candidate. They have the option of voting for their first choice, second choice, third choice etc. If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote, then the last candidate is disqualified and the second-choice candidate of his or her voters’ is added to the totals of the other candidates. This process continues until one candidate receives over 50%.

So let’s look at a theoretical Republican Primary for the State Senate in my hometown of Fairfield. The results are as follows:

• John Smith 3,500 - 35%

• Mary Jones 3,300 - 33%

• Peter Doe 2,500 - 25%

• Joe Bentivegna 700 - 7%

• Total 10,000

Notice that the total vote is 10,000 meaning that no one has achieved a majority of at least 5001 votes. Also notice to no surprise of anyone aware of my political skills, I have come in dead last, with a few of my paisans expressing their tribal loyalty.

What happens next? I would be disqualified and the ballots of those who voted for me would be examined for their second choice. Let’s say this is as follows:

• John Smith - 150

• Mary Jones - 300

• Peter Doe - 100

• Total - 550

Notice that even though I received 700 votes, there are only 550 votes on the second round, possibly because 150 of my paisans refused to vote for a non-Italian.

Now, my second-choice votes are added to the initial tallies and yield the following results:

• John Smith - 3,650

• Mary Jones - 3,600

• Peter Doe - 2,600

No one has achieved the requisite 5,001 votes. So now Peter Doe is disqualified. The second choice of Peter Doe voters is:

• Joe Bentivegna - 2,000

• Mary Jones - 300

• John Smith - 200

• Left Blank - 100

Now the total of the two remaining candidates are:

• John Smith - 3,850

• Mary Jones - 3,900

So, what happens next since neither candidate has received a majority? The vote counters return to those who voted for me and see what their third choice was. The same is done with Peter Doe. If neither of the top two candidates receives a majority, then the fourth choice of my voters and Peter Doe’s are tabulated. If neither Smith or Jones, receives a majority, the candidate with the plurality – let’s say Mary Jones at 4800 votes – wins.

There are many reasons why RCV is impractical and threatens trust in our elections:

1. In the above scenario, note that it is easily possible for the winning candidate to still win with less than 50% and furthermore, that candidate may have been behind initially. This defeats the whole purpose of RCV.

2. Notice that voters for Joe Bentivegna have more power even though they have voted for the least popular candidate. Why? Because their vote can be counted up to four times. This is a violation of “One Vote, One Person,” the bedrock of our democracy.

3. Notice that Joe Bentivegna was shafted by the second round of vote counting because I received a huge amount of Peter Doe’s supporters. The skeptical reader may say that this is statistically unlikely, but this is not true. If Peter Doe and I are the two conservatives and our opponents are the two moderates, this scenario is easily possible. But because I was disqualified after the first ballot, I will never receive these 2000 votes that made me theoretically competitive.

4. It is very time consuming to hand count these ballots. Separate piles of ballots must be created for each candidate. If no candidate receives a majority, each pile must be recounted. Thus, RCV must be done with by computers. And with such a complex system, software glitches will occasionally occur like night follows day.

5. Every ballot must be present unless the first count is an obvious landslide. This means results cannot be finalized until mail-in ballots and those from overseas (military, ex-pats etc.) arrive. This can take weeks.

6. If a recount is required, such as in Connecticut, when there is a less than a 0.5% difference between the leading candidates, it could take weeks if not months to determine the winner.

7. Voters will be skeptical of the results if the leading candidate in the first round ends up losing, and so will the candidate himself. Notice in my example, John Smith was ahead on the first count, but Mary Jones won but did not even receive a majority of the vote.

But the main problem with RCV is that it is too complicated. I spent hours trying to figure it out and I am not even sure I understand it. And I am a political junkie. If our political leaders want to ensure trust in our elections when neither candidate receives a majority vote, then we should adopt the same system as the state of Georgia. Have a run-off election between the two top candidates.

Democracy does not work when voters can’t comprehend or fail to trust the system. We should combine the Canadian and Georgia model if most voters in Connecticut want reform.

Comments: jfbentivegna@gmail.com

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