Will New Jersey fall victim to ranked-choice voting?
by Harry Roth
The Princeton City Council enacted a local law on Monday in support of ranked-choice voting in municipal and school board elections. The ordinance will only take effect if the State of New Jersey passes one of the RCV bills currently in the legislature. A similar ordinance was passed by Jersey City earlier this year.
While the ordinances are useless on their own, they could pressure the state legislature to pass an RCV bill, allowing it to take effect in multiple cities.
Even though ten states and counting have banned ranked-choice voting, some local jurisdictions are going in the opposite direction. Instead of rushing to adopt this broken system, they should consider the experience of other cities that use ranked-choice voting. Oakland, CA, is currently stuck with a mayor who is under FBI investigation for corruption, drug smuggling, and even human trafficking.
Another example is Minneapolis. A once beautiful Midwest city that adopted RCV in 2009 now has a crime rate 143.5% higher than the national average. And do I even need to mention what happened to the tech capital of the world, San Francisco?
The fact is that RCV doesn’t live up to the hype. It does not make politics magically nicer or more moderate, as MIT research has shown. And as it makes elections more complicated and less transparent, it increases the risk of actual failed elections.
These examples highlight the need for every state to ban ranked-choice voting. Without statewide bans, counties and cities around the country may adopt RCV and eventually drag their entire state down with them.