Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Congressman Don Beyer (VA-08) renewed their efforts to bring ranked choice voting to U.S. congressional elections, reintroducing their *Ranked Choice Voting Act *. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) is introducing companion legislation in the Senate.
The legislation would require ranked choice voting (RCV) in all congressional primary and general elections starting in 2028, allowing voters to express support for multiple candidates for public office, with the candidate receiving the most votes declared the winner.
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It’ll never go anywhere but I’m absolutely in favor of it. Where it’s been used, it’s shown to move candidates more to the middle to attract both sides, thus reducing extremism.
I think in the US the more important result would be getting more people to the polls who for now think or are told their third party vote is a spoiler (which it can be, and needs to change). Those people might tend to put Democrat as a secondary vote, and while the third parties won’t win national races yet, they’ll get more voice and more reason to campaign. Instead of just popping up every four years…right Jill?
Will this be reintroduced when we have a majority in the house?
It will be interesting to see if it passes Constitutional muster. The Constitution only requires that “the people” choose the legislator. Previous attempts to regulate voting like this required amendments (e.g. elimination of the poll tax).
Not quite.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S4-C1-3/ALDE_00013640/
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
The 24th amendment was a special case as it only applied to federal elections (so technically state office elections could still have a poll tax). There was also a question of voter qualification being outside the generally interpreted meaning of “times, places, and manner” so a statute wouldn’t be enough, but an amendment would.
RCV I think could generally be understood to be covered under “manner” and so Congress can do that without amendment for Congressional races.
I don’t see how it would violate that. Mathematically, Instant runoff style RCV is still one person one vote. Your ranking just gets to kind of direct where that vote goes once people are mathematically eliminated from contending, the vote only ever counts for one candidate at any given time.
It’s not that RCV violates Constitution, but that requiring RCV could potentially be deemed an un-Constitutional violation of state rights. And with the current SC, it seems likely that’s how they’d rule. But anything that brings more attention and helps normalize RCV is a good thing regardless
Ahh okay I can see that from a historical sense. I recall part of getting the states to actually be on board with a big federal government was the promise they would be in charge of the way they voted for that federal government.
I will also say, many more historical foundations for the US have been wantonly ignored so long as ignoring it advanced US interests. Like how cops in the US are supposed to be strictly a civilian force, yet they are tried under different laws and are allowed many many things civlians cannot have. That was designed as part of the safties against military dictatorship, but we tossed it aside and give our cops military equiptment becsuse its profitable.
With the Republican Party fracturing, you’d think they would welcome this change. It would help them get elected. But they aren’t smart enough to realize that.
With the Republican Party fracturing
Says who? I see very little evidence that it is doing anything but switfly radicalizing while remaining cohesive.
The New Republic, an online magazine, was created, and is run by Republicans who are absolutely against Trump and those like him. And then there are the Republicans from times gone by that are even speaking out against him and his.
Edit: hell the acronym RINO , Republican in name only, was created by Trump and company. It refers to republicans who don’t see things his way.
it would probably fuck them harder, as they would have to “collectivize” for lack of a better term that i cannot remember right now. Far right and MAGA might. But moderate republicans are extremely unlikely to do this, as well as swing voters. It would probably single handedly kill the chances of trump ever winning again.
It wouldn’t screw them over until a legitimate third party is in place. And then maybe. But you have to ask yourself what a third party looks like if it looks like an alternative to both parties. Surely the first third party would just be a split between the parties, it would still take them awhile to win anything at all. But I could see alternatives being a more eco focused party and I honestly think it would screw both major parties. Which is the ideal case. If anything, this screws the dems more because of their voters are more likely to break rank with how the party is going.
i think the moderate voters, both republican and democrat would immediately fuck them over, though the moderate dems are more likely to align and side with current democratic representation, and possibly future as well, just due to fundamental values, so it’s less of a problem for the left.
