North Dakota took a major step towards securing its elections on Wednesday after the state’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill banning ranked-choice voting (RCV). The move aligns with the Republican National Committee, which disavowed RCV in its January meeting.
In a 74-19 vote, North Dakota’s lower chamber approved HB 1273, which specifies that RCV “may not be used in determining the election or nomination of any candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office.” No North Dakota jurisdiction currently employs ranked-choice voting for elections, according to a local state news outlet.
Under RCV, which critics call ” rigged-choice voting,” voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority 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. Such a process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
In addition to a ban on RCV, HB 1273 also prohibits localities from using approval voting, in which voters select as many candidates in a given race as they wish and the candidate with the most votes wins. The city of Fargo is the only North Dakota municipality that employs such a system.
“This bill was brought before [the House] to ensure that all citizens of North Dakota have their constitutional and civic rights protected by the state and not… be diluted… by the city or by the local ballot,” said bill sponsor and GOP Rep. Ben Koppelman.
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