Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) has long been sold as the enlightened alternative to those supposedly benighted, partisan Republicans who just can’t handle voters having more choices. So imagine the awkwardness when the Democratic National Committee decides it may want to ban RCV in Democratic presidential primaries.
Yes, the DNC. The Democratic National Committee. Not the RNC. Not Donald Trump. Not some Republican state legislature. The Democrats.
The DNC is considering a rule that would prohibit states from using RCV to select delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination. That matters because Washington, D.C., is already using RCV in its 2026 primaries after voters overwhelmingly approved the system in 2024.
And that creates a rather entertaining problem for the RCV establishment.
For years, RCV advocates have portrayed opposition to ranked voting as a Republican plot. If someone raises concerns about ballot exhaustion, voter confusion, complicated tabulation or whether RCV actually delivers the promised political nirvana, the standard response is essentially: Republicans don’t like it.
Apparently, the Democratic National Committee didn’t get the memo.
The proposed DNC rule would prevent RCV from being used in Democratic presidential primaries, even in jurisdictions where voters have already chosen it. DC Democrats have now publicly urged the DNC to reject the proposed ban, arguing that it would override the wishes of voters who approved RCV by a 73% margin.
That is not exactly evidence of a Republican conspiracy.
There is an even bigger problem for the RCV sales pitch. RCV advocates routinely argue that the system is particularly valuable in presidential primaries because crowded fields allow voters to rank multiple candidates rather than choosing just one. FairVote, one of the nation’s leading RCV advocacy organizations, reported this year that 63% of likely Democratic primary voters supported using RCV for presidential nominations.
So why would the Democratic Party leadership want to prohibit something its advocates say Democratic voters love?
Perhaps because political parties understand something RCV evangelists occasionally overlook: a presidential primary isn’t merely an election. It’s a delegate-allocation process controlled by the political party.
The DNC may have legitimate reasons for wanting uniform rules, predictable delegate allocation and a nomination process it can administer consistently across states. Those are fair arguments. But if that’s the case, RCV supporters should debate those arguments honestly instead of pretending every objection is part of a Republican war on democracy.
And that’s the delicious irony here.
When Republicans oppose RCV, we’re told it’s partisan obstruction. When Democrats at the highest levels of the Democratic Party move to prohibit RCV from their own presidential nomination process, suddenly the conversation becomes much more complicated. Maybe RCV isn’t inherently partisan. Maybe opposition to RCV isn’t inherently partisan either. Maybe—just maybe—reasonable people can look at a complicated voting system and conclude that it isn’t necessarily the answer to every electoral problem.
The DNC’s proposed ban doesn’t prove that RCV is bad. But it does something almost as useful: it punctures the lazy argument that opposition to RCV is simply a Republican conspiracy.
Turns out Democrats can have doubts about RCV, too. Who knew democracy could be so bipartisan?
This one is [inadvertently] hilarious.
The DNC ss not well-known as a champion for small D democracy!
It eliminates the talking point that only Republicans don’t like RCV
The ranked choice voters say we need to be like Oakland, Minneapolis and LA. What does Oakland have that our wonderful Irvine could possibly want? The loss of business and shopping resources because of crime? Poverty? Low resources for the needy? No routine road maintenance? Racial issues? Voter fraud?
Speaking of Oakland’s mayoral race, according to this article, “in 2010, in which the candidate that received the most first-place votes lost the election to ‘a candidate on the strength of nearly 25,000 second -and third place- votes’ after nine rounds of redistribution of the votes.” No wonder Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee supports ranked choice voting.
https://files.stoprcv.com/production/images/Heritage_RCV-is-a-bad-choice.pdf?dm=1677271152
In ranked choice voting the less popular candidate can easily win. The Heritage article also says that with ranked choice voting the focus of elections becomes the process of the election, diminishing the actual issues that need debate.
Michigan County voter registrars have collectively advised against ranked choice voting.
https://www.calhouncountymi.gov/news_detail_T11_R500.php
Ranked choice voting requires county and state approval. The Irvine ordinance specifically overrides approval from the Orange County Board of Supervisors. The leftists are pushing an operative that will not conform to our existing laws.
On Nov. 3rd, the eligible (and ineligible) voters in Irvine will be called to decide to enact something they know nothing about. If it passes, this juggernaut will affect every citizen in every election in Irvine forever.
The dust from the proven fraud of the 2020 election is still blowing. However, no matter how much paint you put on the ranked choice voting outhouse, it is a useless downgrade from shiny modern plumbing.
This article is written by someone with a middle-schooler’s sense of “ha-ha”. But the truth is that RCV is opposed by people who feel they have their fingers on the buttons of power, and don’t want to give up to voters the ability to decide who we get to choose. The list of these power brokers is long — including Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and now, members of the DNC Rules Committee.
Let’s hope that the DNC General Assembly rejects this power play and gives the choice to the states and to the voters.
In a near unanimous vote, the proposed ban on using RCV for the presidential primary elections was REJECTED by the Democrat National Committee at their meeting yesterday in Austin, Texas.
Many spoke in favor of rejecting the RCV ban, including elected CA DNC Member Christine Pelosi who encouraged the DNC delegates to let the states decide on the use of RCV for their elections.
Notably, ALL of the DNC delegates from California supported the amendment to reject the RCV ban.
The change does not force RCV on any state that does not already have it. It simply avoids overriding or partially nullifying existing RCV laws in the states/territories that do.
Plurality voting is not the problem. Closed primaries are. Poor voter turnout is. If people are not going to the polls, it doesn’t matter what voting system is being used.
I agree with you Eric