Following the lead of other Republican-led states, an Ohio legislator introduced legislation on Thursday that would prohibit the use of ranked-choice voting for state and federal elections.
Under RCV, often dubbed “rigged-choice voting” by its critics, 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.
Introduced by GOP Sen. Theresa Gavarone, SB 137 stipulates that “no election shall be conducted in this state using ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting.” While the measure allows localities to adopt RCV for their respective municipal elections, it includes an additional provision making said localities “ineligible to receive any local government fund distributions from the state.”
“Ranked choice voting, in its most basic form, distorts election outcomes. If implemented in Ohio, it would undo more than two centuries of voters having the ability to cast their vote with one vote and one voice, and alter our elections to look similar to the way it’s done in New York City and San Francisco,” Gavarone said in a statement.
Gavarone was notably one of the main players behind the introduction of the DATA Act, which was recently signed into law as part of the state’s biennial budget. That measure is aimed at bringing transparency to Ohio’s voter data and elections.
Various U.S. municipalities
