Adopting ranked-choice voting would significantly harm the integrity of Michigan elections, a new investigative report claims.
Published by the Michigan Fair Elections Institute (MFEI), the analysis examines reported problems associated with RCV. It specifically addresses issues that could arise should Wolverine State voters pass a potential constitutional amendment proposal that would “require ranked choice voting for major federal and statewide elections and open the door for municipalities to adopt the voting method,” as summarized by the Detroit Free Press.
Supporters of the initiative are currently collecting signatures to have the measure appear on next year’s midterm ballot, according to the outlet.
“To summarize, ranked choice voting, RCV, is the name of the system proposed here in Michigan, while Instant-Runoff Voting, or IRV, is the mechanism which the proposed amendment seeks to implement. Both are problematic, and enacted in concert, their impact would be disastrous,” the MFEI report reads. “Non-majority election winners, lower voter confidence and turnout rates, and higher risk of corruption and moral hazard are only a few of the many downsides that Michigan voters stand to face if RCV is codified in our state.”
Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. 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 his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
RCV has largely been pushed by Democrats and has led to Democrat victories in races for which Republican candidates ultimately received the majority vote. The vast majority of 2024 ballot initiatives seeking to expand the system’s use in numerous states were defeated by voters.
The MFEI report highlights several problems states and localities have encountered while using ranked-choice voting, such as the disenfranchisement of voters.
According to research originally published in the Journal of Urban Affairs and subsequently included in the analysis, an examination of “precinct-by-precinct racial group voter turnouts across five San Francisco mayoral elections between 1995 and 2011 … found that the complexity of RCV, organized via IRV, ‘decreased turnout among [both] black and white voters.’” The study further discovered that RCV exacerbated “turnout disparities related to age and education in the population,” with MFEI noting, “Final results showed ‘a[n] 18% decline in turnout among black voters,’ compared with a ‘16% decline in turnout among white voters’ after the adoption of RCV, compared with pre-RCV rates.”
Other contributing factors leading to voter disenfranchisement in an RCV system and cited by MFEI include higher rates of ballot-marking errors and ballot exhaustion. The latter occurs when voters select only one candidate on their ballot and then have their ballots tossed because their first choice didn’t win a majority in the first round.
“The outcome of this, of course,” the report reads, “is that candidates or parties declared ‘victorious’ through ranked choice elections may not be the first, second, or even third choice of a majority of voters.”
Another core finding included in the report is that RCV systems place an increased financial and administrative burden on election officials.
As an example, MFEI cites a previously published University of Cincinnati Law Review article by Editor-in-Chief Brandon Bryer. Discussing Maine’s use of RCV, Bryer wrote, “although [Maine’s] government argues that RCV saves money, it ignores a gaping hole in that argument — the considerable financial costs of RCV itself.”
“To implement — and more importantly — to maintain RCV, Bryer continued, state governments must ‘conduct detailed voter education campaigns, print new RCV ballots, and purchase expensive ballot machines,’” the MFEI report reads. “Bryer, returning to the example of Maine, wrote further that RCV clearly ‘does not alleviate administrative burdens but rather increases the toll on election personnel and resources, [since] implementing RCV increased the state’s electoral budget two-fold.’ The takeaway for Michigan is clear: ‘if the government ha[s] a sincere interest in preserving money and resources, it should avoid implementing RCV entirely.’”
MFEI concluded its analysis with remarks from MFEI Chair Patrice Johnson and MFEI Legal Analyst Frederick Woodward, who argued that “understanding RCV’s significant flaws is a nonpartisan issue and essential to preserving the integrity of Michigan’s elections.” Doing so, the two officials claimed, “requires vigilance, so the principles of this great experiment in self-government and liberty may be preserved and protected.”
“RCV is only the latest potentially misguided proposal threatening to transform our election system for the worse. While the existing elections system may not be perfect, true election reform ought to occur within the context of this nation’s nearly 250 years of time-tested laws and processes,” Johnson and Woodward wrote. “Only through carefully evaluating radical and potentially ill-founded proposals like RCV can productive debate about the improvement and safeguarding of our elections take place in our great state.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
