Ranked Choice Voting: Modern Innovation or Another Bureaucratic Shell Game?

by Danielle Cassase, Co-founder and Co -Director, Project CIVICA, Inc.

How is this even legal? How is this even happening?!

Picture it: you're watching a street hustler running a 5-card “monty” game. Sleight of hand, fast talk, and by the end—you’ve lost your money and your dignity. Now imagine that exact same scam is running your elections. That’s Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).

This is not just broken—it’s insane. We’re entrusting our sacred right to vote—the very foundation of our republic—to a system that you literally can’t follow, can’t verify, and can’t audit in real time.

Seriously—how did this get approved for use in New York City? In Alaska? In any place pretending to stand for election integrity?

What Is RCV Supposed to Do?

They’ll tell you it’s “modern.” That it gives voters more “choice.” That it “ensures majority support.”

But here’s the trick: RCV doesn’t actually do any of that. What it does do is confuse voters, bury top vote-getters, and deliver weird, roundabout wins that would never fly in a traditional race. It’s a multi-round redistribution shell game where the candidate who was clearly most popular in Round 1 can lose in Round 4.

You can’t even do that in Little League. And we’re doing it with government power?

The Dessert Disaster: When Brussels Sprouts Beat Brownies

Let’s say you’re at a party. The choices are Brownies, Apple Pie, Brussels Sprouts, and Peas.

• 49 want Brownies.

• 24 want Pie.

• 17 vote Brussels Sprouts (???).

• 10 vote Peas.

Peas are out. But those 10 voters had Brussels Sprouts as their second choice. Now Brussels gets a boost. Then Pie gets eliminated—and it turns out their second choice was Brussels too. Final result?

Brussels Sprouts wins. Brownies loses.

In what world do Brussels Sprouts win the dessert vote? The same world where your vote gets twisted, redistributed, and repackaged until the most unpopular candidate ends up on top.

This Is a System Designed to Confuse

Let’s be honest: Ranked Choice Voting is a nightmare for transparency.

• You can’t watch the count with your own eyes.

• You can’t follow your vote from cast to count.

• You have no idea how your second or third choice actually helped (or hurt!) the outcome.

That’s not democracy. That’s a rigged game with rules nobody understands.

Research from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab confirms that RCV ballots are more likely to be mismarked, miscounted, or voided compared to traditional ballots—especially in lower-income communities. [MIT Election Lab, 2023]

The Equal Vote Coalition reports that "ballot exhaustion" and confusion are common, and many voters end up not being counted in the final rounds because they didn’t rank enough candidates. [Equal Vote Coalition]

Case Study: Alaska’s 2022 House Race

In Alaska’s 2022 special election for U.S. House, Democrat Mary Peltola won. Nothing wrong with that—except:

• She only got 39.7% of first-choice votes.

• Two Republican candidates (Sarah Palin and Nick Begich) split the remaining majority.

• When Begich was eliminated, not enough of his votes transferred to Palin, allowing Peltola to cross 51.5% in the final round.

So a Republican-majority state elects a Democrat not because she was the top choice, but because of vote-splitting and redistribution. [New York Times, 2022]

Are We Actually Using This System for Real Elections?

We are. Right now. In New York City. In Alaska. In dozens of U.S. cities.

Not only is this system obscure—it’s nearly impossible to audit. Ballots must be transported to centralized hubs. Machines recalculate rankings over multiple rounds. It can take days or weeks to get final results.

You wouldn't accept this kind of delay in a school board election. Why are we tolerating it for federal representation?

Trojan Horse for One-Party Rule

In cities like NYC, where one party dominates, RCV locks out minority voices. In a "top four" nonpartisan primary, all finalists might be from the same party. Independents and conservatives never even get to the final round.

RCV is the perfect tool for insider control disguised as fairness.

Red Flags Everywhere

• Ballot exhaustion: votes don’t count by the end if choices are eliminated.

• Machine tabulation: almost impossible to verify.

• Strategic voting: incentivizes gaming, not honesty.

• No true majorities: 60% of RCV winners in Maine didn't earn a majority of all votes cast.

• Risky ballot transport: central tabulation raises security issues.

If this were a bank audit, it would be shut down. But we use it to decide who gets power over your family, your paycheck, and your freedoms.

New Section Title:

🗳️ How to Protect Your Vote in a Rigged System

While we work to repeal Ranked Choice Voting, voters can still take action to protect their intent. One common tactic is called bullet voting — where you only rank your first-choice candidate and leave the rest blank.

This strategy ensures your vote goes only to the candidate you genuinely support and isn’t transferred to others you oppose in later rounds. It’s especially useful in races with:

A crowded field of similar candidates

A strong outsider candidate you support

High ideological polarization

Be warned: if your candidate is eliminated early, your vote won’t count in the final rounds. But for many voters, that’s a better outcome than accidentally helping elect someone you don’t support.

In a system this broken, bullet voting is one of the few ways left to vote honestly and strategically.

What Can We Do?

• File lawsuits under equal protection and auditability claims.

• Push legislation to repeal or restrict RCV.

• Demand new ballot initiatives to restore transparent voting.

• Educate others about what’s really happening behind the scenes.

Final Word: Wake Up, America.

Ranked Choice Voting is not how a constitutional republic should function. It’s not transparent, accountable, or worthy of public trust. It’s a bait-and-switch scam with no place in our electoral system.

We wouldn’t use this convoluted mess to choose a lunch order—why are we using it to select our representatives?

Until we can repeal it, protect your vote: rank only those you truly support—and no one else.

Let’s end the 5-Card Monty before it becomes the national standard.

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Update: This article was revised on 6/26/25 to include information about bullet voting and protecting your vote under RCV.

Sources:

• MIT Election Data and Science Lab. "Overvotes, Overranks, and Skips: Mismarked and Rejected Votes in RCV." 2023. https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2023-07/RCV_errors.pdf

• Equal Vote Coalition. "Ballot Exhaustion." https://www.equal.vote/post/ballot-exhaustion

• New York Times. "Mary Peltola Wins Alaska House Special Election, Beating Sarah Palin." Sept 1, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/politics/alaska-special-election-peltola.html