Voters Roundly Reject Ranked-Choice Voting Despite Millions from Megadonors

Every state that had ranked-choice voting (RCV) on the ballot rejected it in a sharp rebuke to the Left’s “dark money”

Out-of-state mega-donors failed on every front to force RCV onto voters, as six states voted to stick with the American voting system that has worked for generations. 2024 marked the culmination of a years-long fight for these liberal elites who are funding RCV initiatives with “dark money” groups. They consist of a mix of liberals who support Democratic politicians and leftist causes and centrists who support Never-Trump Republicans.

As Restoration News has covered, RCV ballot initiatives did not arise organically in these states. In every case, this small group of mega-donors pushed it to block conservatives from office. They understand if they supplant the partisan primary system the only Republicans who get elected will be squishy moderates unbeholden to conservative voters.

Communist Party USA activists also support RCV and recently named it “part of the struggle for democracy” and praised it for “making the possibility of socialist and Communist candidates more viable.”

(READ MORE: Ranked-Choice Voting is on the Ballot in 8 States, Thanks to “Dark Money” Mega-Donors)

Money Can’t Buy Everything

Before this election, only Alaska, Maine, and Hawaii, along with a few heavily Democratic cities had some form of RCV. This made Alaska’s fight over RCV repeal so crucial. As top leftist funders were spending big to spread RCV to more states, they had to backtrack and defend it in Alaska.

Pro-RCV mega donor Katherine Gehl previously touted the state as an RCV model. In addition to paving the way for moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski’s reelection, it also allowed Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola to get elected in 2022 despite coming in second place.

This year, Gehl and her fellow outside mega donors spent over $12 million to defeat the ballot measure that would repeal it in the state, outspending RCV opponents 100–1. Despite the odds, with more than three-fourths of the vote in, Ballot Measure 2 to repeal looks poised to pass, which will free the state next election cycle of the confusing and undemocratic RCV system.

The leftist group Reclaim Idaho, which previously supported Medicaid expansion, pushed an “Alaska-style ranked-choice system” to “end Idaho’s closed Republican primary.” Liberal activists spent over $5.5 million on it. Still, it lost by 40 percentage points.

Oregon’s RCV ballot measure would have required officials to use RCV by 2028 in statewide and Congressional elections and allow cities and counties to implement it for local elections if they wanted. It also required the Secretary of State to create a voter education program for RCV, which would have additionally burdened taxpayers to try to fix a system that isn’t broken.

The PAC supporting RCV in Oregon received $9.4 million, largely from the same “dark money” groups that funded Alaska’s No on 2 campaign. Local branches of national leftist groups also backed the measure, including the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the Urban League. Unlike in Alaska, however, where Republican-connected activists launched a poorly funded but organized opposition, conservatives largely ignored Oregon. The only opposition came from a handful of county clerks who rightly understood how difficult RCV would make their jobs. They launched a PAC to oppose it, but as of late October, they had only raised $1,000.

Despite the lopsided spending, Oregonians rejected RCV 60–40.

In Arizona, voters soundly rejected Proposition 140, which would have created a single nonpartisan primary. It stipulated if the legislature allowed more than 2 candidates to advance out of that primary, the state would be forced to enact RCV in the general election.

Sarah Smallhouse, president of the Thomas R. Brown Foundation (TBF) and Save Democracy, led the Make Elections Fair campaign in support of Prop 140. Save Democracy states it “intends to educate voters of the challenges facing the state of Arizona brought about by our partisan primary system and explore alternative nonpartisan voting systems.” Its team members include Gehl, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

Montana voters narrowly rejected Constitutional Initiative 126, which would have allowed an open primary and the top four vote getters to advance to the general election—a gateway to RCV in case Constitutional Initiative 127 failed. CI-127 stipulated if a general election winner failed to gain 50 percent of the vote, the legislature would have to choose an alternate way to determine the winner. RCV is already illegal in Montana, so this would force the legislature to approve a run-off or repeal its previous anti-RCV legislation.

Colorado made sense as the first truly expensive state for pro-RCV mega donors to fund a statewide ballot initiative. It’s solidly blue, but not blue enough to worry about too much opposition from the radical Left to a voting system that unduly advantages the center Left.

Voters still rejected it 55–45 despite pro-RCV mega donors flushing an eye-popping $19 million down the drain. This included $6 million from Kent Thiry, former Davita executive and co-chair of Unite America. Unite America is one of the primary funders of RCV initiatives. Gehl serves on the organization’s board, and Kathryn Murdoch, media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, is its primary donor.

In Nevada and South Dakota also, voters handily rejected RCV ballot initiatives. In South Dakota, the state Republican and Democratic Parties opposed it.

Missouri voters, meanwhile, approved a constitutional amendment, banning RCV.

Despite getting crushed on every front after wasting tens of millions of dollars, RCV supporters are determined to press forward with their pet project, no matter what voters want.

“We did not get the outcomes that so many worked so hard for,” said Nick Troiano, executive director of Unite America. Troiano tried to look on the bright side, emphasizing how many RCV measures made it to the ballot and the millions of votes it received, adding, “That's a solid foundation from which this movement will continue to build.”

Wealthy liberals concocted RCV to rig elections in favor of liberals and squishy centrists and shut conservatives out of government in every state. Short-term, they’re wasting a lot of money. But they’re expecting their investment to pay off, because it will be much cheaper to get their preferred candidates over the finish line in an RCV system.

Despite being massively outspent, rank-and-file voters like the Oregon election clerks with little to no funding are speaking out and thrashing “dark money” mega donors trying to force their political experiment on people who clearly don’t want it. For now, the people have fought back and won, but as Troiano made clear, they intend to continue flooding the airwaves in every state in which they can get RCV back on the ballot.

(READ MORE: To Prevent Fraud, Count Same-Day Registration Votes as Provisional Ballots)