Prohibiting Ranked Choice Voting Act

TOPLINE POINTS

• Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), as defined below, is an overly complicated system that is not popular among the vast majority of Americans and often prevents the candidate receiving the most votes from being declared the winner. Studies show Ranked Choice Voting discourages voter participation, adds wait time for results, does not decrease negative ads, puts a greater strain on election workers, and increases voter distrust. Instead of making it easy to vote but hard to cheat, RCV will confuse voters and discourage more citizens from voting. The purpose of this act is to ban RCV in states.

Section 1. {Definitions}

1. Ranked Choice Voting is defined as a method for casting and tabulating votes in which voters rank candidates for an office in order of preference, and then tabulation occurs in rounds, with each round dropping the candidate with the least support and then reallocating the first-place votes from the eliminated candidate to the second-choice candidates.

Section 2. {Basic Elements of the Bill}

1. As of [bill effective date], Ranked Choice Voting may not be used to elect or nominate any candidate to any local, state, or federal office in [state]. Any election utilizing Ranked Choice Voting is invalid. No official may be sworn into office on the basis of such an election.
2. The prohibitions of this section do not apply to the internal processes of political parties, such as conventions, the elections of political party officers, or other non-public decision-making procedures by political parties.