Michigan RCV proposal: The most convoluted ever?

Last Friday, I spent the morning with Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers, a diligent group of four appointees evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Their task was to approve a 100-word summary for a proposal to put ranked-choice voting in the Michigan Constitution. In so doing, every member expressed frustration with the complexities of RCV and of this particular proposal. 

In fact, the ballot measure may be the most convoluted and confusing version of RCV ever put before voters. This is true because the Michigan proposal:

• Applies to federal and a few state offices, but not other state offices, guaranteeing ballots with multiple voting formats and multiple election processes;
• Uses RCV in both primary and general elections for these offices;
• Creates a local option, making future changes likely for some voters;
• Allows multi-member RCV elections, which are especially complex;
• Attempts to combine RCV with straight ticket voting (something I believe has never been tried before); and
• Would use RCV at a scale never before attempted, in a state with highly decentralized election processes.

The measure also moves up Michigan’s primary elections from August to June, likely to protect against delays caused by RCV in the primary. Yet the language in the proposal is vague. This caused a dispute between RCV proponents and the Board, with the former claiming their change applies to all primary elections while the Board’s legal advisors indicated the change would apply only in even years.

Thankfully, the Board rejected the misleading summary originally proposed by the RankMIVote campaign, which backs the measure. The Board adopted its own summary that attempts to explain some of the RCV process while removing superfluous references to “ballot candy”—language put into the proposal because it is popular despite having little or no legal effect. As Michigan residents read the summary and consider this proposal, I expect they will join voters in states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon, who all rejected RCV measures last year.

RCV just makes it harder to vote. It also makes it harder to count votes and to understand and trust results. In Michigan, RankMIVote’s response to these concerns seems to be: Hold my beer.