Alabama scored a major win for election integrity Friday after Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV).
“I am proud to sign this bill which takes another step towards ensuring the confidence in our elections,” Ivey said in a statement. “Not only is ranked-choice voting confusing to voters, it also limits their ability to directly elect the candidate of their choice. Voting should be simple, and this complicated and confusing method of voting has no place in Alabama’s elections.”
SB 186 stipulates that “Ranked-choice voting shall not be used in determining the election or nomination of any candidate to any local, state, or federal office.” This law would not, however, apply to “electors who are entitled to vote absentee ballot under the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.”
House Republicans passed the measure last week after it was approved in a near-unanimous Senate vote last month.
Under RCV, which critics often refer to as “rigged-choice voting,” voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
While Maine and Alaska are the only two states to employ RCV so far, their elections since each implemented the system have produced outcomes that clearly contradict the desires of voters. In Maine, then-incumbent GOP Rep.
