The mere fact that both Democratic and Republican party establishments are largely opposed to the concept of ranked-choice voting (RCV) isn’t surprising, nor is it a persuasive reason to vote against Nevada’s Question 3.
If passed by voters in November, Question 3 would establish open primaries in Nevada and allow voters to rank their top five candidates in the general election — a massive departure from our current system of closed partisan primaries and the “lesser of two evils” general elections.
Proponents for the reform argue that it creates a more amicable and less politically divisive electoral process by requiring candidates to reach beyond their party’s activist base in order to garner majority support from the broader public. At the very least, such a system is likely to make it more difficult for cartoonishly partisan actors to survive their primary contests — thus giving general election voters a wider selection of more democratically appealing candidates from which they can choose.
Such arguments, however, haven’t done much to win over the hearts and minds of leaders in either major party. Top Nevada Democrats have voiced their opposition to the proposal, with state Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D–Las Vegas) telling The Nevada Independent that it would be a “mistake” to implement such an “unproven and unwieldy experiment” on voters. And the Washoe County GOP has been relentlessly urging its followers on X to reject Question 3 at the ballot box, claiming the process will be “too complicated” for voters to understand.
However, evidence suggests voters aren’t quite as easily befuddled as party loyalists suggest.
In Alaska, for example, 85 percent of voters who used the state’s newly enacted RCV process said the system was easy to understand, and exit polls from other jurisdictions show similar results. From Salt Lake City, Utah, to Arlington, Virginia, the vast majority of voters seem to have no problem with ranking candidates in order of preference.
Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone loves it. There’s currently an effort to repeal RCV in Alaska, and plenty of opponents have raised other concerns about a process that so drastically alters the way elections are conducted.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation, for example, has argued that the reform would jeopardize the principle of “one person one vote” by disregarding the ballots of individuals who refuse to rank more than one candidate in an election. As the foundation explained on its website, “the voting power for voters who have one strongly favored candidate is diluted while voters with multiple preferences have their voices heard in each round of RCV.”
The foundation uses the 2022 special election in Alaska as an example — a race in which Democratic candidate Mary Peltola beat Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich for the state’s congressional seat. In that race, none of the candidates initially won 50 percent of the vote, resulting in the last-place candidate (Begich) being eliminated from the running and the secondary preferences from those ballots being counted for the remaining candidates.
Much to the chagrin of Palin, however, many of Begich’s supporters refused to mark her as their second choice. In fact, more than 11,000 of his supporters refused to rank anyone as their secondary preference, meaning neither Palin nor Peltola benefited from those ballots. According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, that process “disenfranchised” those voters, because they weren’t able “to choose between these two final candidates …”
Certainly, the foundation is right to point out that Begich-only voters had their ballots disqualified after their preferred candidate lost the first round of tabulations. However, those voters absolutely had the opportunity to “choose between” the final two candidates — all they had to do was mark their second-place preference when they initially cast their ballot.
The fact that many voters chose not to do so isn’t evidence of being “disenfranchised” any more than marking the “none of the above” option or leaving a ballot blank disenfranchises voters in our current system. Voters who decided to only rank a single, unwinnable, candidate in a RCV system aren’t surrendering their voting rights any more than someone who votes for an unwinnable third-party candidate in our current system.
Nonetheless, because the outcome of that race resulted in a Democrat going to the U.S. House for the first time in half a century, Republicans have been adamant that the process is patently undemocratic and have largely supported an ongoing effort to repeal RCV.
Given the fact that moderate Alaska Republicans actually performed fairly well in that same election cycle, however, it’s far more likely candidate quality played a larger role in Palin’s loss than the state’s newfangled election process. Indeed, the success of more broadly acceptable Republicans in Alaska’s other races indicates that RCV proponents might just be right about the system incentivizing candidates to distance themselves from fringe elements within their base.
Apparently, a few pragmatic partisans in other states seem to understand this potential of RCV as well. Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, for example, has come out in support of a similar reform in his state as a way to ensure the radical fringes of both parties don’t continue to dominate state politics. And former Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams apparently agrees, pointing out that the state’s prolific rise in unaffiliated voters is evidence that people “are rejecting both parties because both parties are going to their extremes.”
However, those two are certainly outliers in their respective parties — and it’s easy to see why. One of the most profound political complications of RCV is that political parties simply won’t retain the sort of control they currently hold over who does, and does not, end up on the general election ballot.
Rather than allowing a small fraction of highly energized partisan activists to determine which candidate will advance to a “lesser of two evils” general election, RCV gives voters the ability to select from a much larger pool of candidates — candidates who will be incentivized to reach beyond the niche issues of their party’s base and largely ignore the strong-arm tactics partisan bosses currently use to keep candidates toeing unpopular party lines.
For a Democratic Party that has long enjoyed the success of Harry Reid’s political machinery and a GOP that went so far as to “rig” a caucus for former President Donald Trump, that sort of control over candidates, voters and the process isn’t something they’re going to relinquish without a fight — which likely explains how the state’s top Democrats and a decidedly Trumpian GOP apparatus have found themselves aligned in opposition to a fairly popular electoral reform.
Ironically, to a great many voters who are fed up with the grift of modern political parties, that consensus among the political elite might actually serve as one more reason to consider voting yes on Question 3.
Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.
