Elections Reforms Aren't About "Democracy."

When they tell you who they are, and what their agenda is, believe them. "Vote at Home" and "Ranked Choice Voting" campaigns are partisan power grabs.

I transitioned from a credentialed news, opinion, and photojournalist in Oklahoma to a full-time flak some 44 years ago and never looked back. But I never gave up an interest in and affection for my former profession, even as it disgusts me occasionally (okay, frequently).

On the limited salary (not complaining) of a congressional press secretary, I quickly subscribed to several Washington-based publications upon changing careers and moving to our nation’s capital in 1978. They included the Washington Post, the Washington Star, and the Washington Monthly, an iconoclastic left-wing monthly launched by the late Charlie Peters. His “Tilting at Windmills” column was a must-read. While a nascent conservative, I appreciated the sharp take-no-prisoners writing and occasional muckraking it featured.

Even if one wholeheartedly disagrees with them, you can still admire the biting wit of writers on The Left, none more so than former Oklahoma Observer editor Frosty Troy, whom I briefly sat next to in the Oklahoma State Capitol press room in 1977. The late Troy personified his publication’s motto to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Especially the latter, even as he was in the pocket and did the bidding of the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s heavily Democratic teachers union.

But there’s another reason to peruse the musings of such publications. They expose the truth about themselves and their agenda. They don’t hide it anymore. I suspect we have the Trump political phenomena to thank for that, at least partly.

Washington Monthly published a post by Alexandra Sharp, a deputy copy editor at Foreign Policy Magazine and former writer at the left-wing Vox entitled, “Two Great Elections Reforms that Go Great Together.” They apparently turned their headline writing over to a college intern that day. “Ranked-choice voting brings numerous benefits and one downside: It requires voters to spend more time with the ballot. Vote by mail gives them that time,” the subhead read.

You need not read too far to find out what makes that so “great.” Ranked-choice voting gives third-party voters a second vote and the ability to have their cake and eat it, too. They can vote for Ralph Nader but prevent George W. Bush from being elected President by designating Al Gore as their “second choice.”

Think that’s a conspiracy theory? I’ll let Sharp tell it:

Another potential benefit of ranked-choice voting is that it allows voters to support third-party and unaffiliated candidates, who might better represent their political views, without empowering a “spoiler” and elevating a candidate they strongly oppose. Had the system been in place in Florida in 2000, for instance, left-wing voters could have selected Ralph Nader as their No. 1 candidate and Al Gore as their No. 2 without inadvertently handing George W. Bush the White House.

She admits that ranked-choice voting makes the voting process more complicated and time-consuming. But voting at home gives you all the time you need to have that “friendly” political operative magically show up at your home the day your ballot arrives, knock at your door, help you make the “right vote,” and even deliver that ballot on your behalf. That is, where it’s permissible, of course. Uh-huh. “Your terms,” indeed. McCrae Dowless, call your office.

The first state to institute ranked-choice voting for a general election was Maine, the result of a ballot initiative. In 2018, on election night, incumbent GOP US Rep. Bruce Poliquin led his Democratic challenger, Jared Golden, and two other candidates by about 2,100 votes. But because Poliquin collected under 50 percent of the total vote, voters for third-party and fringy independent candidates were re-voted for their “second choice.” Golden magically won. He continues to represent Maine’s Second District to this day.

According to Washington Monthly's Sharp, the ability to vote more than once is a feature, not a bug or an unconstitutional violation of our long-standing one-person-one-vote electoral system.

Poliquin challenged Maine’s ranked-choice voting system in federal court. Lance Walker, a Trump-nominated judge (also previously nominated to state courts by former GOP Gov. Paul LePage), heard the case. Despite being a former Federalist Society member, he fully embraced the wonders of ranked-choice voting in a 30-page opinion.

“…there is no dispute that the RCV Act (ranked-choice voting act) — itself the product of a citizens’ initiative involving a great deal of First Amendment expression — was motivated by a desire to enable third-party and non-party candidates to participate in the political process, and to enable their supporters to express support, without producing the spoiler effect,” he wrote. “In this way, the RCV Act actually encourages First Amendment expression, without discriminating against any voter based on viewpoint, faction or other invalid criteria. Moreover, a search for what exactly the burden is that Plaintiffs want lifted is not a fruitful exercise.”

Who said voters for third or non-party candidates weren’t fully participating in the political process? They get the same opportunity to vote that we all do. Why should they be given a second vote? I get that conservative judges are often loath to overcome ballot initiatives (not liberals, apparently), but even when they’re unconstitutional? The lesson is not to count on so-called “conservative” judges to protect our electoral systems from bad ideas and abuse. But you knew that already.

Hans von Spokosvsky, a former Federal Election Commissioner, points out another problem with ranked-choice voting: voter exhaustion.

The 2010 mayor’s race in Oakland, California, took 10 rounds of vote tabulation to get a winner. The ultimate winner received less than a quarter of the first-round votes, yet managed to pile up a 1.9% margin of victory in the final round.

The Associated Press reports that front-runners in ranked-choice contests often wind up losing in later rounds because “a substantial number of voters either cannot or choose not to rank multiple candidates.” Many “opt to cast a vote for their top choice, neglecting to rank anyone else.”

See the hypocrisy? Proponents claim that “ranked choice” voting ensures the winner enjoys majority support. But even if they only enjoyed a quarter of the votes in the first round? And what about the voters who don’t rank all 5 or 10 or more choices? What about them? Aren’t they disenfranchised over the sheer confusion of the ballot? And good luck being an election official who has to count all this. Mon Dieu.

And then there’s the “Vote at Home” phenomenon. At least six states, including California and Colorado, conduct their elections entirely by mail. The National Vote at Home Institute leads that movement. It is chaired by Oregon’s former Democratic Secretary of State. It is substantially funded by the Democracy Alliance, a recipient of millions of dollars from . . . wait for it . . . George Soros, among others on The Left.

In theory, voting at home sounds plausible, especially for the physically challenged and others like me with long histories of voting absentee. As a political operative and later as an executive for an international food company, I was away from my voting residence on election day for decades. I always “voted at home” (or the office) but only after I applied for my ballot. That allowed election officials to verify the authenticity of my request. My ballot in Pennsylvania had to be returned by the Friday before the election (no longer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, thanks to a stupid law, Act 77, voted for by most Republicans. Another lesson). Ballots now only have to be “postmarked” by election day and don’t even have to be signed as required by law.

What a mess. But that’s not the real problem. That would be the awful condition of voter files in many states that do not comply with federal law and clean them up as required periodically. Our tainted and partisan Justice Department refuses to enforce the law. There are reports of voters casting ballots in states where they’ve long relocated or own second or third homes while residing elsewhere. And don’t get me started on never-ending reports of long-dead voters still casting ballots. The Public Interest Legal Foundation has unearthed nearly 350,000 voters still on rolls who sometimes died decades ago, many of whom are still voting.

It reminds me of what the late Democratic Governor of New Jersey, Brendan Byrne, once said. When he died, he said he wanted to be buried in Hudson County “so that I can remain active in Democratic politics."

That makes “voting at home” a big problem. At a minimum, it is a huge challenge to ballot integrity, no matter the often-unenforced safeguards put in place, never mind the potential for harassment of many voters by political activists. And never mind the challenge to local election systems, coupled with extensive early voting, as long as 45 days (Virginia) in some cases.

No wonder Americans are losing confidence in the integrity of their elections.

Our system should allow carefully regulated absentee voting to accommodate physically infirmed and absent voters and even ranked-choice voting, not for the general election but for primaries or conventions where parties choose.

That happened in Virginia’s nominating elections in 2021 when the GOP candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General were all chosen that way by Republicans. And it worked. All three eventual nominees - Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and Jason Miyares, were respectively nominated and subsequently elected. It can help parties nominate the most electable candidates for a general election. In Virginia’s case, it didn’t matter - all three nominees led the balloting throughout the “ranked-choice” process. I’m okay with parties selecting their nominees this way.

But ranked-choice voting for general elections is moving in several states that favor GOP candidates, such as Utah. Credit South Dakota and Montana for moving in the opposite direction.

You now know the motive, and it isn’t about democracy. It’s about power.