Ranked choice voting is an abomination, but is it also racist?
Zachary Faria
Video Embed
Ranked choice voting is an abomination that has increasingly been embraced by Democrats in areas where it helps consolidate their power. In Washington, D.C., where Democrats have all the power they could ever want, some Democrats are now implying that ranked choice voting is racist.
The D.C. Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit to block a ballot initiative that would allow for open primaries and ranked choice voting in city elections. Open primaries would allow over 80,000 “unaffiliated” voters to vote in the city’s primary elections. Given that the city is over 76% Democratic, its elections are essentially decided in Democratic primaries.
THE WHITE HOUSE COCAINE STORY SHOULD NOT JUST FADE AWAY
D.C. Democrats have an understandable objection there, but the objection to ranked choice voting is more peculiar. D.C. Democrats argue that low-income residents, who are disproportionately black, would be confused by the new system, and that it would be discriminatory in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act. According to D.C. Democrats, poor black voters just aren’t smart enough to understand how ranked choice voting works.
Putting aside the obvious actual racism of saying black residents aren’t smart enough to rank candidates in a simple list, the implication from D.C. Democrats is that ranked choice voting itself is racist. If that is the case, Democrats in Maine and Alaska should be fielding calls from the NAACP any day now. Of course, ranked choice voting ostensibly helps Democrats in those states and would not in D.C., so maybe it’s only magically racist when it happens to work against Democrats.
The real reason to oppose ranked choice voting is that it is a terrible policy that results in large chunks of the electorate simply having their ballot thrown out as votes are counted. It allows some voters’ second, third, or fourth options to count the same as others’ first options. It is inferior to the top-two runoff format that other states use in their elections if you want a candidate who reaches the arbitrary 50% plus one threshold.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Ranked choice voting is not confusing to voters, even the poor voters D.C. Democrats are infantilizing while trying to protect their political hegemony in the city. It is confusing to incompetent election officials, as New York City has shown the country. It would make the city’s elections more open to chicanery, make counting votes last even longer, and disenfranchise a large chunk of voters whose ballots would simply be tossed out in favor of the fourth choice of others.
That is true everywhere ranked choice voting is implemented, not just in Washington, D.C. It has nothing to do with being too “confusing” for poor, disproportionately black voters and everything to do with being a violation of the basic principle of “one person, one vote.” D.C. Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to admit that in order to reach the right conclusion, so instead they had to resort to insulting the intelligence of poor black voters as an excuse to protect their own political power.