‘THE FAILURE OF RANKED CHOICE VOTING By John Gilmore Imagine you are an incumbent where 62% of the vote goes to anyone but you. In fact, imagine that that incumbent has been in office more than a decade and a half, has used profanity in official emails to constituents and openly states his last term is for additional padding to his pension. Most observers would rightfully think that things would look grim for that incumbent in the run-off election. Unfortunately, in a classic example of “if t's not broken don't fix it” that unloved incumbent prevailed due to the left-wing, manufactured imposition of the flawed “Ranked Choice Voting’ (RCV) In the recent election for Ward 2 St. Paul city council, incumbent Dave Thune received only 38% af the vote in the first instance. Under a normal run off, the odds would be strongly against a sixteen year incumbent getting yet anather four years given such widespread lack of support and a desire to"throw the bum out.” Yet instead of giving voice to the lack of support for a fossilized, entrenched incumbent, the change wrought by RCV disapated that dissatisfaction and prevent any real change. The meddling do-goaders who saw nothing broken and insisted upon pushing through RCV in the 2010 election should be embarased by this result. The actual results of the Ward 2 election are telling. Obviously, of those voting, 100% Voted for one candidate. Yet only 72% cast a second ballot, dropping dramatically to 42% for those who cast a third ballot, plunging to 17% for those casting a fourth ballot and collapsing to aan abysmal 10% for those who ranked all five candidates. Disconcertingly, as Shawn Towle of the online publication Checks & Balances told The Uptake, assuming no write-ins those 10% Voted for every candidate! Was actual voter turnout increased by RCV? Not at all. Were the expenses of a primary eliminated? Highly unlikely given the re-allocation pracess and costs associated with voter education although complete figures are not yet available. Did voters get to oust an unpoplular incumbent? Precisely the opposite. On its face, there was no reason, compelling or atherwise,to instate RCV. Why, then, was it peddled in the first instance? Enter the sophists from Fair Vote MN, the liberal collective that imposed RCV on Minneapolis and St. Paul. “We never said RCV would increase voter turnout,” they bleat. Even if true, the admission is damning, This manipulation of the election pracess~and that is precisely what RCV is and nothing mare--was designed to maximize voter participation, they claim. There Is no increase in voters but they get to check more boxes, hence greater participation. Welcome to liberal logic RCV, they go on to say, solves the problem of low turnout primaries. But there is no problem except in the minds of those who can't leave well enough alone. interviews with Fair Vote MN representatives on The Uptake give the game away: primaries draw extremist views and RCV mandates a bland mush to be presented as somehow a real choice to voters. In ather words, they don't care that 62% of voters in Ward 2 wanted a new city council member and were thwarted. In the taxonomy of liberalism, intent always trumps outcome The reality is that RCV acts as an incumbent protection racket. Results from elections in San Francisco and Portland, by naw liberal parodies of themselves, show that the incumbent won a plurality of the first ballot cast (by definition more people voted against them than for them) yet prevailed in the end. Under RCV, you can hope but you can't change. In Ward 2 a highly unpopular incumbent could not be ousted. It is no coincidence that RCV is pushed in liberal areas, the better to reduce any ideological competition. Before St. Paul voters were fooled into approving RCV, a prominent critic warned that it was unnecessary, would result in lower voter tumout (which happened in Minneapolis in 2009, the lowest since women got the vate) and is a solution in search of a problem. The critic? Dave Thune Ranked Choice Voting denied voters in Ward 2 their objectively shown desire for new leadership on the city council. For this travesty alone we need to commence its repeal.John Gilmore is Ward 2 Chair of the St. Paul Republican City Committee