Miguez’s arguments against ranked-choice voting lean on misinformation

Ranked-choice voting is so dangerous, according to one Louisiana state senator, that no voter should be allowed to use it — except for the tens of thousands of military voters who have used it for years.

Senate Bill 101, sponsored by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, advanced from the House Judiciary Committee in a 8-1 vote Wednesday and is pending on the House floor for final approval. 

Also called “instant runoff” voting, ranked-choice voting forces political candidates to try to appeal to a majority of voters. 

To borrow an analogy from a New York Times report, if an election were compared to a group of people trying to choose a vacation spot, the traditional voting method forces voters to make only one choice, no matter how many options — mountains, beach, and big city — are under consideration. With ranked choice, voters get to list their preferences in order: First, the beach, but if no one else votes for the beach, then the mountains, and if not that, then the city. 

When ballots are tallied on Election Day, the race is over if any candidate nets more than 50% of the first-place votes that are cast. If no candidate gets a majority in the first round, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. If a voter’s first choice is eliminated, rather than his vote being wasted, it is applied to his second favorite candidate. The process continues with the lowest ranking candidates being tossed out until one candidate gets more than half of the votes. 

Miguez’s bill would prohibit local governments from using ranked-choice voting for any elections in Louisiana, with an exception for out-of-state military members who have used it in Louisiana elections for decades. 

The proposal virtually sailed through Wednesday’s committee hearing with few questions from lawmakers about Miguez’s claims, many of which don’t hold up under scrutiny. 

“Ranked-choice voting guarantees that ballots are thrown in the trash,” Miguez told the committee. But it’s a false claim that Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, who’s credited with steering Trump nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, and groups such as the conservative Election Integrity Network have been spreading heavily over the last year.

Service members stationed out of state or overseas have used it to vote in Louisiana elections with no issues since the 1990s. There has never been verified evidence that their ballots have been disposed of without being counted as Miguez claims. 

Ranked-choice voting has been in use in the United States for over 100 years, but it has only recently become a target of certain politicians blaming the system for their election losses. 

The real issue around ranked-choice voting is that it generally makes it difficult for extremist political candidates to win elections, according to Josh Daniels, a Marine combat veteran and former Republican election official in Utah. 

“If you’re a political candidate who’s extremely polarizing, you cannot effectively manipulate a ranked-choice election to your advantage,” Daniels said in a phone interview. “It just favors whatever party can appeal to a majority of the people. And that’s good for democracy.”

Daniels used ranked choice as a voter while deployed in Iraq and later managed several ranked-choice elections in 2019 and 2021 while serving as county clerk for the very conservative Utah County, Utah. Six southern states have used it effectively and without incident for their military voters for years. Now politicians in many of these states are suddenly decrying it as some sort of attempt to rob constituents of their voting rights, he said. 

Conservatives rally against ranked choice voting in Louisiana

“It’s just hypocritical,” Daniels said. 

None of these points supporting ranked-choice voting have been mentioned during discussions and debate over Miguez’s bill, though some lawmakers have opposed his bill on other grounds. 

During Senate floor debate last month, Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, argued the proposal is unnecessary because Louisiana would have to first enact a law just to allow ranked-choice voting, which it has not done. 

“Do you have any other bills that define things that we don’t do in Louisiana?” Luneau asked Miguez. “I’m just curious how many different things are there in Louisiana that we don’t do that we need to define.”

Miguez would not give a straight answer to the question. 

“Let’s not complicate the matter,” Miguez said. “Let’s just look at the crux of this thing. If you support ranked-choice voting, then vote against my bill.”

The Louisiana Senate is generally less politically polarized than the House, and some members are quick to point out those differences between the chambers. 

“Let’s use this as a good teaching moment,” Luneau said. “This is not how we do things in the Senate. We answer the question that was asked.”

Other lawmakers who opposed the bill argued the state would overstep by telling local governments how to conduct local elections. 

Miguez’s bill is part of Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry’s legislative agenda. During Wednesday’s hearing, Landry did not repeat Miguez’s false claims of “trashed ballots” but instead argued that ranked-choice voting can sometimes be complex and confusing, which has been the case in some elections. 

She said a study of a ranked-choice election in another state indicated it caused low-voter turnout. 

After a 2004 ranked-choice election in San Francisco, one analysis found that the prevalence of ranking all three candidates was lowest among African Americans, Latinos, voters with less education and those whose first language was not English, according to the Alaska Policy Forum. 

However, other states and municipalities have seen success with ranked-choice voting. More recent polling after the 2021 election in Utah found that 86% of voters liked the system, and 81% said it was easy or somewhat easy to use, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. 

Ranked-choice voting is used in more than 50 cities across 14 states. Colorado, Nevada and Oregon are on track to consider adopting it this year for statewide elections. It is even credited with helping Republicans break a decade-long losing streak in Virginia with the 2021 election of Gov. Glen Youngkin.

Like Miguez’s bill, legislation in four other southern states trying to ban ranked-choice voting all include exceptions for overseas military voters. 

“RCV is such an effective tool that military voters can continue using it as they have for years,” Daniels wrote in a recent column for Governing. “So why this panicked rush to ban it for others? It doesn’t make sense.”