Heated Exchanges During Ranked Choice Voting Initiative Town Hall Meeting in Twin Falls

“Ranked Choice Voting is Really Rigged Choice Voting”

There were heated exchanges between old guard left-leaning establishment Republicans and liberty-minded grassroots patriots at the Brickhouse in Twin Falls the evening of December 12. About 250 people were in attendance.

Democrat Luke Mayville of Reclaim Idaho brought his Open Primary Initiative to town along with an aging panel of bitter RINOs who had a bad case of Dorothy Derangement Syndrome.

Chief among them was Jim Jones who immediately attacked those “extremists” concerned with books in libraries.  “I want people to go into the library and get a book without having to be subjected to being prosecuted by a bunch of lynchmen.”

“In communist countries, you’ve got a click of people that are in control of who gets to serve and who gets to run for re-election and if they ever step out of line, they call them into a star chamber session and give them hell.  I’ve seen something like that happen here under Dorothy Moon and her party.”

That’s odd.  I thought this was about Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). 

And odd that there was so much concern about the 270,000 supposedly “disinfranchised” Independents who can’t vote in our Republican Primary.

But it’s okay to hog tie conservatives with RCV that statistically hands the victory to moderates.

Right.

“You can vote for the candidate with an extreme view, but that candidate is not likely to win because RCV leads to consensus.”  

RCV is really Rigged Choice Voting.

Speaking of being hamstrung, the audience was allowed to ask questions.  Once.  No rebuttal or followup.  No debate.  Lots of good questions were asked – cost, transparency, speed, party affiliation, machine fraud, turnout etc.  But answers were vague, misleading or flat out lies.

That’s frustrating.  

We were told the new way to win elections is to be nice.  “With RCV you can’t beat the crap out of your opponent.  You have to talk nice to your opponents because you want to get the second and third choice votes.  The nicest person wins.” 

Be reasonable.  Be civil.  Be pragmatic. Be kind. Be better.  

Spirited debate on the issues is taboo.

Yet when a gentleman warned the audience, “I’m a California native.  You guys are asleep .. and complacent.  [Newcomb] wants you to read whatever you want.  Well you know what they’re reading to kids in California?  Books on  how to masturbate.  We don’t want pedophilia and degeneracy.   Be careful what these people are trying to pull on you guys with their little key phrases, “patriotism” . “constitution”  There’s a reason why people are moving to Idaho.  It’s safe.  It’s moral.  These people want to change that.  They want to exploit it.  Please be careful.  

Jim Jones barked “We don’t need anybody to come in from out of state and tell us how to run our lives.”

That doesn’t sound nice.  Or kind

So good on another patriot for admonishing Jones: “You owe that gentleman from California an apology.  You said that someone from out of state shouldn’t come here and tell us how to run Idaho, but you’ve got a guy from Alaska on your panel.  How many of you were not born and raised in Idaho and how long should you have to live in Idaho before; your opinion matters?”

The Uniparty panel:

The panel Luke Mayville brought included Jim Jones (former AG and Justice on the Idaho Supreme Court), Leon Smith (former Idaho State legislator and Twin Falls Mayor), Chuck Coiner (former Idaho Senator), Bruce Newcomb (former Representative and Speaker of the House) and Tom Begich, democrat Senator from Alaska.

Begich was the “expert” on RCV and open primaries (OP) who, when asked about cost, apparently forgot that Alaska spent over 3 million on voter education when the budget allowed for $150,000.

When asked about the time required to count RCV ballots. Begich said “it is the same amount of time.”  In reality, Alaska was the last state in the nation to report election results in the 2022 election.  

And voter turnout?  Begich said it was hard to measure.  Actually, Alaska experienced the lowest turnout in the history of the state after RCV was implemented. 

Fact check that.

Mayville countered the charge that RCV is hard to understand with “It’s about as hard as counting to four.  RCV is complex in the sense that you know… some people can’t add up to four.”

Sophistry.  

Begich described the tabulation process:  The very first round just looks at first choice and tallies them all up.  In second round, the last place candidate gets eliminated.  If you voted for that last place candidate as your first choice, your vote will now go to your next choice.  In the next round, the third place candidate gets eliminated.  If you voted for that candidate, your vote will now go to your next choice.  Once it’s down to just two remaining, whoever has the most votes wins.  This is an instant run off.  

Got that?  RCV is like common core math.  Unnecessarily complicated, confusing and chaotic.  

An Open Primary fundamentally changes the way we have always voted.  

It is called a Jungle Primary because  ALL candidates,  regardless of party, run in the primary and ALL voters, regardless of party, get to vote.  Candidates don’t even have to affiliate if they don’t want to. 

OPI ostensibly makes political parties moot.  Jones said, “The founders didn’t give any rights to political parties.. Political parties have no rights under the Idaho Constitution.”  Mayville added, [The closed] primary choses a party leader; [the open] primary narrows the field to a manageable group of candidates.

“Everyone is free to vote regardless of party.”  “It is not up to the parties how the candidates affiliate.”

There will be lots of candidates on the ballot – voters pick ONE.  The top FOUR run in the general election where RCV is used.  That’s why you need to be able to count to four.

Marking the ballot across (not down), voters will rank the four candidates in order of preference.  If you only vote for one candidate, your ballot will be “exhausted” and not count for the final rounds of voting.  Our votes are no longer equal because by the time you get to the last round, only 20% of the people ranked all four candidates and thus still have their ballots tabulated.  The result is, only 20% actually chose the winner.  The ballots of the loser determine the winner.

“It guarantees the winner has broad support.”  Fact check:  False.

Unfortunately, supporters have the money and they are going to gather the requisite signatures (63,000 total statewide from 6% of the voters in 18 districts).  The Open Primary Initiative will be on the ballot in November, 2024.  It will pass into law on January 1, 2025 with a simple majority vote.

Expect a barrage of nonstop seducing, manipulative, false advertising ad nauseam in print and media.  

It’s up to We the People (YOU) to defeat this nightmare:

• Get out and inform your family, friends, neighbors and congregations.  
• Arm yourself with information – check out Phil Izon’s work at rankedchoiceedu.org.
• Share the attached sample Alaska ballot. 
• While we still can, elect conservatives to the legislature in 2024.
• Contact your legislators and insist they overturn the initiative and introduce legislation to require plurality voting (current system).

Don’t let the Idaho Uniparty blow up our entire election system with this scam that destroys election integrity and eliminates conservative and third party candidates.