Republicans join liberals to push Final Five, ranked-choice voting

Never let it be said that there’s no such thing as bipartisanship — not only have some Wisconsin Republicans teamed up with liberal Democrats to do away with the state’s one-person, one-vote tradition of voting but it’s the Republicans leading the way on a idea mostly conceived by Democrats.

Last October, Republican Sen. Jesse James of Altoona and Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) introduced a bill that would implement so-called Final Five and ranked-choice voting in the state. 

Under the legislation, U.S. House and Senate candidates would run in a single nonpartisan primary in which the top five candidates advance to the general election, which then uses a ranked-choice instant runoff, where voters rank their choices in sequential order.

All votes are tallied, with the candidate receiving the fewest first-place votes eliminated and the votes of those who chose that candidate transferred to the voter’s second-choice preference. The votes are tallied again, and the process continues until there are two remaining candidates. 

At that point, the candidate with a majority of the combined first-choice and reallocated preferences wins.

Supporters of the idea maintain the process will produce more moderate winners by eliminating polarized partisan primaries in which more extreme candidates prevail. Opponents call the method a Trojan horse designed to ensure that the establishment always wins.

Opponents also say ranked choice voting sits on shaky constitutional territory, violating voters’ equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, but so far those arguments have not prevailed in court.

Each side argued the pros and cons in a recent state Senate public hearing on the issue.

A broad coalition

In his testimony, the bill’s lead author, Jesse James, said American politics had descended into ideological division and needed a fix.

“For much of the 20th century, both major political parties had considerable ideological overlap,” James testified. “There were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats who moderated each party and encouraged candidates for public office to appeal to a broad coalition of supporters to win their respective elections.”

Unfortunately, over time, James testified, there was “a sorting of ideologies” into camps where there was little diversity in beliefs and worldview. 

“This siloing of philosophies has removed a major incentive for politicians to broadly appeal to the electorate, so candidates today are now encouraged to race towards base politics which often rewards the most extreme and the most partisan voices in a room,” he testified.

Final Five and ranked-choice voting would change the incentives for public officials, James said.

“Firstly, it makes the general election matter again,” he testified. “In 2022, 83 percent of the U.S. House was elected by just 8 percent of Americans. This mismatch in accountability can give radical groups far outside the mainstream a disproportionate amount of say in policy — another explanation for the breakdown we have been seeing recently in even the most basic functions of government. By advancing five candidates to the general election, we make general elections matter.”

Most important, James said, final five voting requires that each candidate elected has a majority of support in their general election, rather than a plurality of the vote to win, meaning candidates can currently win with less than 50 percent support. 

“This leads to increased cooperation and bipartisanship,” he testified. “Since candidates will need to secure a clear majority of votes to win, they will need a message and a voting record that is able to get them a majority of the votes.”

In solidly red and solidly blue districts, James said, there would still be strong conservatives and strong progressives getting elected to bring ideas to the table. 

“But in many districts, positions will need to be moderated to get elected and legislators will need to cooperate, two things necessary for governing,” he testified. “Our current system is incentivizing the exact opposite.”

Tusler, the lead author in the Assembly, said that fewer than two in 10 Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time.” 

“This troubling trend comes at a time when bad actors in the federal government are prosecuting their political opponents to try and interfere with the outcome of an election,” Tusler said. “Considering all that has occurred, most people can agree that the current system is broken.”

Final five voting would fix things, Tusler said, because it has the ability to reshape the incentives for those elected to office. 

“Rather than altering the identity of elected officials, it fundamentally changes their motivations,” he testified. “Under final five voting, officials are elected by and accountable to a wider electorate, encouraging them to focus on comprehensive solutions to our nation’s challenges.”

Final five voting, Tusler said, is a voter-centric approach. 

“The beauty of this system is that it caters to both committed ideological voters and those seeking more mainstream options,” he testified. “Voters can prioritize their preferred candidate while still having the opportunity to support a more established party candidate as a secondary choice.”

Tusler said the system eliminates the need for independents or leaners to turn to a third party or abstain from voting and would reduce the likelihood of strategic funding in primaries to promote a weaker candidate from the opposing side. 

“This nuanced approach promises a more balanced and representative electoral process,” he said.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Smith of Brunswick said the proposal represented a historic piece of legislation.

“Regardless of who is in power in Washington, one thing that the majority of Americans can agree on is that partisanship is alive and well,” Smith testified. “These divisions are creating gridlock and they are impeding on progress. If we can agree on that, then voters should have the opportunity to vote for a candidate that must appeal to the majority of voters.”

Smith said final five voting is needed because partisan primaries can be very damaging, encouraging candidates to adopt more extreme partisan positions in order to come through a partisan primary. 

“With final five voting, we can ensure that voters get a true choice of who should represent them in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” he testified. “This proposal has the ability to reduce partisanship, encourage cooperation, and puts the power back in the hands of the majority of the population.”

Federal politics have become extreme, with ineffective and unaccountable gridlock, Smith said.

“Traditional partisan primaries leave voters with a stark contrast between political parties instead of a vast middle ground that can be owned by candidates that have a chance to win in a general election using final five voting,” he said.

Smith said he knew firsthand about the perils of extreme partisanship.

“During the spring, summer, and fall, I hold Stop and Talks,” he said. “I constructed a six-foot sign for the top of my 1999 Dodge Ram that I can fold down when driving, but then lift up for drivers to see when I’m parked in a place that constituents can find me and stop to talk. It’s their chance to Stop and Talk. I have heard many times from my constituents that they will vote for the lesser of two evils and why can’t you guys get along? Or I hate the two party system.”

Smith said it didn’t have to be that way.

“Folks say to me: My vote doesn’t count, why should I participate?” he testified. “If voters don’t believe their vote counts or matters, than why should they be a part of this? If we do not have a diverse and participatory electorate then we will not have true representative democracy that represents the people.”

Smith said the bipartisanship Final Five, ranked choice voting bill would improve federal representatives and senators’ accountability to their constituents and incentivize cooperation rather than competition.

“In other states, such as Alaska, Final Five Voting has been used successfully,” he said. “Voters understand the procedure and do not have difficulty filling out their ballot. … Final Five Voting gives Wisconsin voters an opportunity to have their voices heard and a way to ensure greater accountability in our elected officials…. This bill has the opportunity to change the divisiveness in Washington, tone down the politics in Wisconsin and get back to a functional democratic-republic. Wisconsin voters crave elections rooted in ideas rather than partisan rhetoric. It’s time to adopt Final Five voting for our federal representatives and senators.”

Conservatives: Don’t fall for it

Conservatives characterized the voting scheme as a Democratic ruse that was fooling gullible or complicit Republicans. Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) laid out various concerns opponents have framed.

First, she said, the process of ranking multiple candidates can be more complex for voters, potentially leading to confusion or errors in ballot completion. That complexity might deter some voters from participating or result in unintentional mistakes, Brandtjen testified.

“Critics argue that ranking only five choices may limit the expression of voter preferences, especially in elections with numerous candidates,” her testimony stated. “Some voters might have preferences beyond the provided five choices.”

There were technical challenges, too, Brandtjen said.

“Implementing and managing a ranked-choice voting system can pose technical challenges, from ballot design to counting and reporting results accurately,” her testimony stated. “If not executed properly, it may lead to logistical issues and delays in determining the winner.”

The intricacies of the ranking process, potential limitations on voter expression, risks of strategic voting, unfamiliarity among voters, technical challenges in implementation, perceived unfairness, and the potential for tie situations — all collectively contribute to the contention that the bill might not be the optimal choice for the state’s electoral system, Brandtjen said. 

“These considerations underscore the importance of carefully evaluating the impact and feasibility of any proposed changes to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of our democratic processes,” she said.

The executive committee of the Dane County Republican Party called it a Trojan horse.

“Touted by its principal Wisconsin advocate and former Obama appointee, Katherine Gehl, as a means to ‘break political gridlock,’ final five voting is a Trojan Horse,” the committee stated in testimony. “The only gridlock [ranked-choice voting] has a clear record of breaking is majority conservative representation. In fact, [ranked-choice voting] — in whatever variation — has consistently helped Democrats advance their candidates and agendas wherever it has been implemented.”

The conservative MacIver Institute said it was a lie that under ranked-choice voting, winners would have majority support.

For one thing, MacIver argued, five candidates would compete in the general election, making it possible, if not likely, no candidate would get a majority of first-choice votes. 

“As candidates with the lowest numbers of first place votes are eliminated, and second choice votes counting as much as first round votes, surviving candidates compile larger vote totals,” MacIver’s testimony stated. “When voters do not rank all candidates (perhaps ones they don’t know or they dislike enough to refuse to vote for) their ballots are thrown out and their voices are silenced, while voters who may be randomly ranking candidates they may know nothing about will have their random rankings count toward a pretense of a majority.”

In practice, MacIver stated, ranked-choice voting can result in a complete fallacy of a majority even if you are willing to accept the “nonsense notion” that second, third, fourth and fifth-place votes are worth — and should count — the same as a first-choice vote. 

MacIver cited a 2018 congressional election in Maine.

“In a four-way general, the GOP candidate who would have won with close to a point lead over the second place under traditional voting lost the election to the next highest first-ranked (D) candidate, who picked up more of the third and fourth place voters’ second choice rankings — which count equal to the first-place rankings of every other voter,” the testimony stated. “In the course of this so-called majority victory, nearly 15,000 ballots — 5 percent of all ballots — were declared ‘exhausted,’ tossed out, and not counted. Once they started throwing out ballots, [ranked-choice voting] produced an election where the ‘majority’ winner really only garnered 48 percent of all ballots cast. Because so many ballots are tossed out in later rounds of calculations, the results can be anything but a majority win.”

Scott Walker, the president of the Capital Research Center, a Washington think tank that specializes in identifying special interests in state and federal policy making, said the big money behind ranked-choice voting is Democratic money.

“Like many special interests, the donors pouring money into this election scheme frame it as a ‘nonpartisan’ idea,” Walker said. “But the cash behind ranked choice voting demonstrates that is not true. Left-wing Democrats are its largest boosters.”

Wisconsin may or may not decide that ranked-choice voting is good, Walker said, but either way they should not fall for the claim that centrists or nonpartisans are the main backers of ranked-choice voting, or that lots of conservative donors support it.

“Left-wing mega-donors who’ve put cash behind ranked choice voting include Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency tycoon who was the second largest Democratic Party donor in the 2022 cycle, behind only George Soros,” he testified. “Second, a Wisconsinite, Katherine Gehl, former head of Gehl Foods, is almost certainly the largest single donor to [ranked-choice voting] campaigns. She was a bundler for Obama, though she now donates to some Republicans who are needed to pass [ranked-choice voting] laws.”

Walker said Ebay billionaire Pierre Omidyar is another major donor to ranked-choice voting. 

“He’s a megadonor to numerous left-wing causes and probably the largest donor in America to so-called NeverTrump efforts,” he testified. “On election issues, he not only supports [ranked-choice voting] but also such dubious policies as expanding vote by mail.”

Finally, Walker said, the two most prominent groups pushing ranked-choice voting are FairVote and Unite America, both supported by left-wing mega-donors. 

“FairVote receives support not only from George Soros but also from his son Jonathan,” he testified. “Omidyar also supports FairVote, as do the Tides Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund — two left-wing philanthropies currently under fire for funding left-wing activists linked to anti-Semitic protests and even Palestinian terrorist groups.”

If one wonders why so many left-wing Democratic billionaires support ranked-choice voting, Walker said, there’s a method to the madness.

“I suspect they support it because by ending partisan primaries, it would gravely weaken both political parties, which in turn would strengthen the billionaires’ political power, because both parties would lack the power to oppose billionaires’ whims,” he testified.

Lori Roman, chairwoman and CEO of the American Constitutional Rights Union Action Fund, testified that even for vulnerable voters who are not in residential facilities, ranked choice voting is complicated, confusing, and challenging. 

“It will further disenfranchise these voters and will increase the likelihood that they will not vote or will seek assistance from someone who may ignore their free choice and fill out the ballot for them,” Roman said.

And though Roman said activists pushing ranked choice voting say it is simple, she said it is anything but.

“It is complicated and confusing,” she said. “It disenfranchises voters and makes vulnerable voters more susceptible to vote fraud and suppression.”

When speaking with both homeless and disabled voting constituencies and their advocates, Roman said she routinely gets such feedback. 

“RCV is too complicated to empower them to vote without direct assistance, especially those in group homes,” she said. “And direct assistance makes them vulnerable to vote fraud.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.