Exposing the Ranked Choice Voting Scam (feat. Brady Smith)

Welcome to the Emerging Issues Show - the show where we talking about topics that are popping up on the peripheries of society and public policy.

Today, we are talking about a proposed overhaul to our voting system called Rank Choice Voting. Supposedly, this new voting system will allow for better representation and result in fairer outcomes, but is this really the case? Or will Rank Choice Voting work to further cement into place the two party system while disenfranchising more voters along the way?

Our guest today is Brady Smith, a fellow in the American Journey Experience Freedom Rising Fellowship program and author of the article “Exposing the ranked-choice voting scam.”

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Host

Donald Kendal

Donald Kendal hosts episodes of Stopping Socialism along with weekly releases of the In The Tank podcast.

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Donald Kendal: 00:00

Alright. Welcome to the Emerging Issue Show. I am your host, Donald Kendall, and this is the show where we're talking about topics that are popping up on the peripheries of society and public policy. Today, we are gonna be talking about a proposed, a proposed plan to overhaul the voting system called rank choice voting. Supposedly, this new voting system will allow for better representation and result in fair outcomes.

Donald Kendal: 00:26

But is this really the case, or will rank choice voting work to further cement into place the 2 party system while disenfranchising more voters along the way? Our guest today is Brady Smith, a fellow in the American Journey Experience Freedom Rising Fellowship program and author of the article, exposing the ranked choice voting scam. Brady, thank you for coming on with me.

Brady Smith: 00:51

Hey. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here and discuss this topic.

Donald Kendal: 00:55

Yeah, no doubt. And I will say that, and I've told you this before, but this was a topic that was not on my radar. And when it first came across my purview, I thought, yeah, you know, I don't know. This doesn't seem like a big deal. But, as I looked into it further, I was like, this kind of seems like a big deal.

Brady Smith: 01:13

So

Donald Kendal: 01:14

I'm glad that you, you know, took part in in, at least partial credit and kind of getting it to my attention because I feel like this is something that needs to be discussed, to be sure.

Brady Smith: 01:26

Yeah. And what I found in in researching this too that I is very interesting is that for most people, this is, oh my goodness, a new thing. I need to think about this. I need to figure it out. It's actually not that new.

Brady Smith: 01:37

It's been tried. It's failed, and it's been repealed in several different jurisdictions. And, so with that example, I I don't know why it's still being pushed. Other than that, I think there's some nefarious purposes behind it, which are definitely are coming to light. So it's interesting how it it is presented as this new solution to the problem, but it's actually just a repackaged failed, process that that hasn't worked and is not going to work.

Donald Kendal: 02:06

Right. Right. Yeah. I feel like I even recall hearing about this, like, a decade and a half ago. But let's before we get into any of that and some of the nefarious stuff, let's start off with the basics.

Donald Kendal: 02:17

Why don't you just lay out what is ranked choice voting for anyone that's not familiar with it?

Brady Smith: 02:22

Yeah. It's definitely a good good starting point. So it it's it's all in the name. Ranked Choice Voting is basically a different style of voting. So instead of just picking, I want this person to be president, I want this person to be mayor, and just choosing the the person at the top of your list that that you would like to be in that position, you actually rank the the the candidates in in order of your preference.

Brady Smith: 02:42

So you start with, you know, this is my first choice. This is my second choice. This is my third choice. So and then it goes through multiple cycles, which is also often termed instant runoff voting. So ranked choice voting, instant runoff voting, the same thing.

Brady Smith: 02:56

Basically, if no candidate gets that 50% threshold, then the lowest ranked candidate is taken off the ballot and the votes are redistributed based on the voters' next preferences, until you finally get to a spot where one person is getting 50%. So if that sounds complicated, it is, unfortunately. Right.

Donald Kendal: 03:16

Right. And, you know what? I'm just reading from your article, and we'll get into some of this. You know, even if it doesn't sound too complicated, it gets kind of complicated, and it kind of has some potentially really negative results. But, again, we'll get into that.

Donald Kendal: 03:30

But I guess, my follow-up question, just gonna set the foundation, is what is the justification for this? Why is it even being proposed in the first place? Like, what's the official kind of narrative as to why this is being proposed?

Brady Smith: 03:46

Yeah. I think that's a great question because I think it's it's very easy. A lot of time when you have something that you disagree with or that doesn't sound right to just be like, oh, no, that's this total junk. It's total just ignore it. Basically, I think it's good to Steelman.

Brady Smith: 03:57

The argument as they say, where you actually present the argument is like, why does this make sense? Or why do do some people think this makes sense? So I think it's it's very obvious, when you look at our current political atmosphere. There's so much money and so much corruption going on in elections. It seems like the person with the biggest pocketbook wins.

Brady Smith: 04:17

Often you have, you know, corporations and in different, super packs and that sort of thing, donating to campaigns, getting people in office that it doesn't seem like the people in that area necessarily want that candidate. So the the the goal so the stated goal behind ranked choice voting is to help eliminate that, to help make it more democratic is a a word often used by projects like, FairVote, and and others, that are trying to implement ranked choice voting. The idea being that, hey. If we have this where you get to choose your your first choice, you won't have to do the the politics. You won't have to think about, does this person have a chance to win?

Brady Smith: 04:51

Because even if you pick a first choice, that has zero chance of winning, at least your voice was heard, and then you were able to select the second choice, you know, if that person didn't get that 50% threshold there. So the idea, the the stated, goal of ranked choice voting often is that it will make it more, you're make it so that you're able to pick candidates that you actually want instead of ones that have a chance of winning. That's definitely one, big part of it. There there's quite a few other reasons, but I think that's pretty pretty much the main thing is that our current system, you just have to pick up this guy. You know, if if you have for instance, president is one that often gets brought up, where you've got Republican versus Democrat.

Brady Smith: 05:27

That's always what it comes down to in a presidential race. You know, forget the 3rd party candidate. Even if you love them, even if you want them to get elected, a lot of times they just don't have a a chance. So the the goal the stated goal again with ranked choice voting is that if even if they didn't have a chance, you could rank, you know, Bobby Kennedy as your your first choice. And even if you were actually Donald Trump's, you know, supporter, if Bobby Kennedy wasn't in the race, but you prefer Bobby Kennedy, you could rank 12, and therefore, your vote would still, be counted in the end.

Brady Smith: 05:58

But, again, in practice is not exactly how it works.

Donald Kendal: 06:02

Right. Right. And and I feel like, you know, I reference the idea. I seemingly have a memory of, you know, 15 years ago, like, hearing about this for the first time and thinking like, oh, yeah. That's that sounds like a great idea.

Donald Kendal: 06:14

You're telling me that I could put, like, Ron Paul number 1, and then, you know, who was it? John McCain running in 2008 as number 2, I guess, and then so forth. And it almost seems like, yeah, that's great. Like, I can have, like, a clear conscious and not have to necessarily do the, what's what's the term, like, the lesser of 2 muscles or something. Right?

Donald Kendal: 06:34

So it almost seems like when you're when it's just that sort of elevator pitch for it, it's like, okay. I get it. Yeah. Maybe I could be on board with this. And that's kind of where I was when this issue first kind of floated across, my my purview in more recent, you know, instances.

Donald Kendal: 06:52

Where I'm just like, yeah. I'm not really sure what the big deal about this is. But but like I said, once you start looking into it a little bit more, it's like, oh, yeah. That this doesn't seem like a good idea. So so let's get into it.

Donald Kendal: 07:05

The the actual drawbacks of this, I I you know, as you described, some advocates of ranked choice voting suggest that this is gonna help those that feel disenfranchised by this kind of you know, you pick team blue or team red, and that's it. But you argue in your article that, that this sort of system will probably inevitably lead to more disenfranchisement of voters. Can you explain that?

Brady Smith: 07:31

Yeah. Yeah. So there's something in ranked choice voting called exhausted ballots. So basically, if you fail to rank all the candidates, so say you you got 5 candidates and you, like, look at the ballot and say, I only know this one and this one. And this guy is my first choice.

Brady Smith: 07:48

This guy is my second choice, and I don't really care about the others. If you don't fill that ballot in all the way, that ballot can just get exhausted, which is another word for disenfranchisement or just basically silencing somebody's vote. And we have data around this where this is a common occurrence, and it can be, I've seen, 7%, 8%, 12% of votes that got exhausted in an election. So you are further disenfranchising people by silencing their vote. So if if I am confused about what the ballot is supposed to look like, if I do it wrong, if I make a mistake, all these things can can lead to your ballot being exhausted.

Brady Smith: 08:26

And when that happens, your voice is is is, effectively silenced.

Donald Kendal: 08:30

Mhmm. Yeah. The well, I'll get to a next point in a minute, but there's also the idea of this being proposed as a way to encourage more people to come out, you know, like, you know, people that are kind of disillusioned by the binary choice of just the 2 candidates. Maybe they're not come out to vote, but if we have this type of ranked choice voting, maybe it'll encourage more voter turnout. But you kind of argue that, no, it's actually probably opposite.

Donald Kendal: 08:58

It's probably gonna end up reducing voter turnout that we've seen how this is reduced in voter turnout. Can you explain that?

Brady Smith: 09:05

Exactly. And it's it's again, it comes down to data where, yeah, it might sound good on paper, but in practice, this is not how it turns out. We actually have data that, shows in several elections. There was actually an 8% lower voter turnout in in ranked choice voting jurisdictions during off cycle elections, compared to non RCV locations. So what's going on there?

Brady Smith: 09:29

A lot of it is because I'm having to rank the the number of candidates, however many may be in this race. It actually takes me longer to vote. So you got longer time at the poll, which means longer lines, which means, you know, I've got I just got off work at, you know, 5 o'clock, and I'm I'm headed to the poles. Oh my goodness. There's a long line.

Brady Smith: 09:46

Yeah. Forget it. I'm headed to home to have some dinner. So you you run into that. You run into the fact that people get to, you know, the polls and and and the and the lines long, and they just don't wanna to mess with it.

Brady Smith: 09:58

But, yeah, the that lowering of voter turnout is actually it's it's provable data that we have, to show. So you can say all you want that, hey, This is gonna bring more people out. The fact is that that's not what the data supports. Mhmm.

Donald Kendal: 10:11

Yeah. And then one of the more eye opening things for some of these, like, specific examples of, voting systems that have been trying to utilize this ranked choice voting, having really, really crazy outcomes. And this is, I mean, some of these examples, I think, like, alone should be, like, the the nail in the coffin to trying to apply this type of new voting system across the country. Can you talk about some of these, specific examples of of how this has turned sour?

Brady Smith: 10:43

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So we've got, kind of what what happens is as, you know, the less people are are voting and stuff, because the the the the polling time is long. You on the other end of that, you have the fact that, the actual time, the onus on the poll workers is increased.

Brady Smith: 11:00

So not only does it take longer for people to vote, it takes longer for people to actually figure out what, what just happened. So you're going through these multiple cycles of all this, you know, counting and back and forth. There is one election in. I think it was Minneapolis has one of their mayoral races. It took, based on some estimates about 30,000 man hours to count the 70,000 ballots that came through for a mayoral race.

Brady Smith: 11:26

Like, this isn't even a national or statewide race. This is a city race. Like, that is an Credible amount of time and efforts. Idaho has ranked choice voting on the ballot. It was a ballot initiative that came through its extremely negative thing.

Brady Smith: 11:40

Definitely hoping that anybody from Idaho is voting. No on Prop 1, But, with with all that that's going on there, there's actually a fiscal impact statement that the the secretary of state put out, and the numbers on it are absolutely insane. So not only are the poll workers having to work more and longer and more hours is gonna cost more money. Just everything around it is going to cost the the state and the voters, ultimately, more money, more time, more effort, and then the confusion that results from that is just absolutely catastrophic.

Donald Kendal: 12:10

Yeah. There's one, I don't know if it was in this article or or something else that, we were doing research on, whether it was a it was a New York race that went to, like, 8 different stages of runoff, and it took forever. It took, like, what, it was, like, weeks for them to figure it out. But the worst example, and I think this was, like, a you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like it was, like, a school board race in California or something like that where they they did this runoff ranked choice voting, and then they at the end of the day, they installed the wrong person. Like, the the the confusion resulted in the wrong person being awarded the election.

Donald Kendal: 12:51

I mean, that that's like I I feel like that is impossible in a normal voting system, but it's somehow possible in this.

Brady Smith: 12:57

Yeah. No. It's it's it's absolutely striking when you see these different examples. And, again, this isn't a new thing. We're not reinventing the wheel.

Brady Smith: 13:05

I mean, they're trying to reinvent the the voting wheel, but it's already been attempted to reinvent the wheel and it's just not worked. We've got a lot of instances where a lot of people are extremely, you know, turned off by the results that end up coming. There was a 2018 congressional race, where you had one guy who the the Republican actually ended the first round of voting with more votes than the other person, and then he ended up losing the election at the end of the day. So you you got this this this was the first choice of of most of the people, and he ends up losing the election. So it's things like that where they're just, it's confusing people.

Brady Smith: 13:41

They don't understand why their vote wasn't counted. It's interesting you mentioned that mayoral race as well. Not only that it's hit them 8 rounds and weeks weeks to to figure out, you know, out of the 10 candidates who had won, there was a 140,000 ballots that end up getting exhausted, AKA thrown in the garbage because people hadn't filled them outright or got confused or what have you. And, Yeah. I don't I don't know if, I don't know if more complexity is something that our election system is in any need of at this point.

Donald Kendal: 14:10

No. Especially, you know, after the last couple of, election cycles that we've had, I feel like the faith in our election system is probably at a near all time low, and adding this and adding the, the, you know, reduced voter turnout and the ballot exhaustion and the potential for, you know, abuse or even just mistakes of this, like, it's just going to decrease the faith in our electoral system. And one of the things that I was thinking about earlier, and I I kind of balked at mentioning at the time, but I I feel like I have to to bring it up, is this idea that, like, oh, well, all those people that are, you know, for the 3rd parties, and they don't want to choose the lesser of 2 evils, and they can come in. They could put their first person on top. I almost feel like that's just a trick.

Donald Kendal: 14:56

It's just like a trick to get people in the door that are wanting to vote 3rd party so that you could put your 3rd party person at the top and then that'll be eliminated at the first round. And now we've got your vote for 1 of the main two parties. Like like I I I've talked to people about this ranked choice voting ever since the issue has, you know, come across, my desk, but, I I asked, one of these, like, experts in this in this field. I asked, like, do third parties, like, fall for this? Because it just feels like a trap to to wrangle their voters into one of these other two parties.

Donald Kendal: 15:31

Yeah. And they said, yeah. Unfortunately, they do. They do feel, fall for it. That to me is, like, the most insidious part of this entire thing.

Donald Kendal: 15:39

Like, it's like tricking 3rd party voters into casting their vote for 1 of the 2 people that they think is evil. Like, that's that's just that's the insanity of this ranked choice voting.

Brady Smith: 15:49

Yeah. Well and that's where I think it comes down at the end of the day. And I I kinda had a bit of a crisis of faith as I was doing the research into this to to begin with where I was like, yeah. You know, ranked choice voting is obviously not the answer, but we can't deny that our current system isn't working super good. Like, we do have a lot of corruption.

Brady Smith: 16:08

We do have a lot of candidates to get elected, time after time after time, and people hate them. They don't want them in office, but it just seems like we can't get better choices. And, really, I think what it comes down to is it's very easy to try to find the easy way out. You're trying to look for, okay. This will solve it, instead of being, more introspective and thinking, no.

Brady Smith: 16:30

Maybe I need to go do some work. Maybe I need to mobilize people in my community where we're actually putting people on the ballot. That's the beautiful thing of living in the constitutional republic is, the republic the whole the side of a republic is that we get to elect representatives. They have to represent us, and that is the the whole thing about it. We're not just given choices if we choose to go make a choice, if that makes sense.

Brady Smith: 16:54

So you you can't just expect the party to to give you the perfect candidate every time. You have to get involved. Each individual citizen has to get involved and take that action. And it's it's it's not fun. It's not necessarily fun to go to a GOP meeting or or a, you know, a local county meeting or something like that.

Brady Smith: 17:11

They're not particularly fun type of events to go to. Sure. But if you actually care about this country and if you actually care about the future where we're headed, that's the type of effort. That's the type of sacrifice that's that's required. And, honestly, it it's not that big of a sacrifice.

Brady Smith: 17:26

I was, listening to a podcast the other day. They were talking, quoting Thomas Paine and the the whole, American crisis and then the whole thing about the sunshine patriot. I I can't quote it, but I I highly encourage everybody go look that up. The the the contrast of what those patriots went through versus us having to go to, a local, party meeting. But that's that's no there's no contrast.

Brady Smith: 17:49

There's no comparison between those two things. So I would highly recommend people to to stop looking for solutions to something that works and instead try to, you know, go go a step back. Go a step fur back from the from the where the actual election takes place. Figure out how we can get some good candidates on the ballot. That's the starting point.

Brady Smith: 18:07

That's really, I think, what people need to focus on.

Donald Kendal: 18:09

Yeah. No. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, there are so many times where I feel, you know, like somebody that's completely opposite of me when it comes to the kind of political makeup, where they I could agree with them on an issue, like a problem. I mean, like, yep.

Donald Kendal: 18:25

I agree. That's a terrible problem. It needs to be solved. We need to do something about it. But then the solution that they're proposing is is as, to fix that problem that I agree with.

Donald Kendal: 18:35

No. No. That's the wrong solution. So, yeah, like, we can totally acknowledge that there are problems with the system. Is this the right, solution to that problem?

Donald Kendal: 18:46

No. It is not. So last question. This this seems like it's getting a little bit more traction. Is that the case?

Donald Kendal: 18:53

Is this proposed system kind of catching on across the country, or is it just some isolated cases? What's the current kind of makeup of this ranked choice voting?

Brady Smith: 19:02

Yeah. So currently, there's actually 2 states that are voting on, banning or repealing, ranked choice voting. So the I would say the the momentum is is kind of 5050, maybe actually a little bit more toward getting rid of ranked choice voting. There's actually quite a few states currently that that ban ranked choice voting throughout the state completely. It's just not even allowed on the state level, and that trickles down to all the local municipalities, counties, and and cities, etcetera.

Brady Smith: 19:31

So there's Alaska and Missouri are actually, Alaska is going to repeal it potentially here in this upcoming November 5th election. Missouri is looking at banning it completely, which Missouri would join. I think it's 10 at least 10 other states that have ranked choice voting ban throughout the state. So that that's good. You know, we're we're looking at Alaska was one of the, one of the forebearers of ranked choice voting.

Brady Smith: 19:53

They've actually have it for quite a bit. There's been a lot of dissatisfaction with the results that have come through that. So it's very interesting to see them. 1 of the the the initial ranked choice voting proponents, now going back and repealing it potentially. So we'll see how that election goes.

Brady Smith: 20:09

We got Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Colorado, that are all kinda looking at I I believe it's Colorado. Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure, but they're they're looking at at implementing ranked choice voting. So we've got 4 states where it's on the ballot of whether or not they want ranked choice voting. So it's really important if you live in in those states, and it that that that's just on on a state level. I'm sure there's municipalities, on a smaller level that are potentially looking at this too.

Brady Smith: 20:35

So if this is on your ballot, make sure that you get educated about it, educate your friends, because it's it's one of those things that especially you get, you know, flyers in the mail from the proponents of this, which is another whole aspect of this where we've got, it's very lopsided. The the proponents of ranked choice voting are spending 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars. The the anti ranked choice voting is under a 1,000,000, so it's around $600,000 that's had been spent on this sort of thing. So it's it's just pitiful, the the anti ranked choice voting. The the amount of push is going for ranked choice voting is very disturbing because, like I said, it's all lopsided.

Brady Smith: 21:08

It's all coming from one side of the aisle, and I think it's pretty obvious which side of the aisle that is. So it's very important to get educated, get out there, and and vote if this is something that's on the ballot in your area.

Donald Kendal: 21:18

Yeah. Yeah. So it's ranked choice voting. Brady, I wanna thank you again for not only coming on the show, but just making this an issue in my mind. Because it's like I said again, when when I first heard about it, I was like, yeah what's the big deal?

Donald Kendal: 21:33

But after working on it with you and reading your stuff, it's become very clear that this is definitely an emerging threat when it comes to our voting system. But Brady Smith, like I said, author of that Blaze article, exposing the ranked choice voting scam, and also a fellow of the, Freedom Rising Fellowship program, the American Journey experience. Thank you for coming on with us today.

Brady Smith: 21:58

My pleasure, Donald.

Donald Kendal: 21:59

And everyone else, we will talk to you on the next episode.