Americans of all political backgrounds have rejected ranked-choice voting as a confusing scheme that makes it more difficult to exercise your right to a vote that counts,” Rebekah Paxton, director of research and coalitions at the Employment Policies Institute, which launched Protect My Ballot, told The Daily Signal.

“Studies show that [ranked-choice voting] disenfranchises voters and reduces turnout, while its proponents’ promises remain largely unfulfilled in practice,” Paxton said. //

“It’s a good program for political and ideological activists. The average voters have a hard time remembering the names of the down-ballot candidates,” Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which led the fight against ranked-choice voting in the Bay State, told The Daily Signal. “Simplicity and clarity to voting is better than ranking and algorithms.” //

But runoff elections are a better alternative to having candidates win by a plurality, according to a 2019 report by Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky and Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams.

A majority is more than 50% of the vote, while a plurality is the largest percentage of votes that go to any one candidate in a race. A candidate is less likely to achieve a majority when a race features more than two viable candidates. //

Voters have a greater opportunity to make an informed choice than with instant runoffs (i.e., ranked-choice voting). Runoff elections guarantee that the winner of the runoff election has a genuine mandate from a majority of the voters—a crucial factor in a democratic system. Runoff elections carry additional costs—but so do primary and general elections. Yet few people suggest abolishing them because of their cost. Consent of the governed matters.