Ranked Choice Voting Locks in Electronic Tabulators
Which are already a risky way to tabulate votes
Last year my ballot for the Minneapolis municipal elections was already ranked choice.
Tomorrow at 3pm at the Minnesota Senate Building (map) there will be testimony for SF2270 on introducing big changes relating to ranked choice voting all across Minnesota:
A bill for an act
relating to elections; providing for ranked choice voting in elections for federal
and state offices; establishing a Statewide Ranked Choice Voting Implementation
Task Force; authorizing jurisdictions to adopt ranked choice voting for local offices;
establishing procedures for adoption, implementation, and use of ranked choice
voting for local jurisdictions; allowing local jurisdictions to use electronic voting
systems with a reallocation feature; authorizing rulemaking; requiring a report;
appropriating money; amending Minnesota Statutes 2022, sections 204B.35,
subdivision 1; 204C.19, by adding a subdivision; 204C.21, by adding a subdivision;
204C.24, subdivision 1; 204D.11, subdivision 1; 205.13, subdivision 2; 206.57,
subdivision 6; 206.58, subdivision 1; 206.83; 211A.02, subdivision 1; proposing
coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 206; proposing coding for new
law as Minnesota Statutes, chapter 204E.
I have emailed Beth Fraser in keeping with process in hopes to testify in opposition. My statement, if I’m able to give one, will be very simple:
Ranked choice voting would essentially lock counties into using electronic tabulating equipment—since ranked choice is not as easy to count by hand—and therefore any merits it may provide are greatly overshadowed by the cost and risk of disenfranchisement to hundreds of thousands of voters (if not millions) already existing in the current electronically dominated voting process.
For details on this meeting, go here.
Election bills currently in the house.
Election bills currently in the senate.
For an introduction to how machines likely controlled 2020, feel free to read my free book, [S]elections in Minnesota. (Paper copies available anywhere you buy your books.)
