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Youngkin, Chase, Cox Sign Joint Letter To RPV

There are ways to do ranked choice, and ways not to do it...

Shaun Kenney

Apr 22

Three of the gubernatorial campaigns — Glenn Youngkin, Kirk Cox, and Amanda Chase — have all co-signed a letter to Republican Party of Virginia chairman Rich Anderson asking RPV to clarify the process of how the ranked choice ballots will be tabulated.

A portion of the letter is listed below; the entire letter can be found by clicking here.

Each of us are vying for the nomination, and while we are all competitors in that contest, we are writing to you now to express our shared resolve that all elections must be free, fair, and transparent. The Republican Party—the party of election integrity—must lead by example as it prepares to conduct its May 8 nominating convention.
Unfortunately, the method currently being considered by the State Central Committee to count the ballots, tabulate the delegate votes, and calculate the final weighted results of our convention does not meet this standard. We would like to express our strong but respectful objection to the current method, and encourage State Central to instead select a fair, open, and transparent process, potentially run by an independent third party, that ensures the integrity of our convention and confidence in the outcome.
. . .
While we appreciate the work that has gone into the process, and do not wish to publicly cast dispersions (sic) on anyone involved, we believe it would be better for the party to pursue an alternative method.

Dispersion is what happens if we don’t settle on how the ranked choice ballots will work. Aspersion is with regards to one’s character or honor…

So what is everyone worried about?

Let’s dispense with any critique about ranked choice voting per se. Here is a video worth 4 minutes of your time if you want to sort why RPV chose ranked choice balloting for the convention (and why it helps arrive at a consensus candidate).

In short, if your candidate loses in the 1st round? Your vote automatically goes to your backup choice.

What the letter appears to be trying to avoid is a Star Chamber via technology where the third party outfit consumes the ballots and produces a winner.

The solution?

Establishing a chain of custody for the ballots.
Ballot scanners and hand counts to ensure ballot integrity.
Bring in more 3rd party vendors and observers.

Pete Snyder’s campaign (notably omitted from the joint letter to Chairman Anderson) was practically effusive in their support.

What does this mean for conventioneers?

You may have heard the old Benjamin Disraeli line about there being three types of lies. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Of course, how one tabulates a ranked choice ballot is up for debate. Traditionally, you do it precisely as it is described above. In a convention atmosphere, most of the time those votes go entirely towards whichever person the losing candidate endorses (most of the time).

This is how it is supposed to work:

Problem is, this process can be gamed. It can also be gamed in terms of who is removed from the ballot when.

For instance, in 2007 the First District had an “elimination round” where any of the 11 candidates who did not clear 15% were instantly removed. Half the field was whacked at once. One could imagine a firm 2nd place candidate only coming in at 8% of the vote who clearly would have won in a drip-drip-drip of candidates one at a time, but because they simply didn’t clear the first post? They’re out.

One could imagine another method where — if a candidate is eliminated — then all of their 1st place votes go to their 2nd place candidate, stacking the 1st place votes onto the 2nd place votes. Now that might normally happen in a convention, but that seems rather odd in a ranked choice format.

Flipside? We could just go for the headcount method — one man, one vote — and let the chips fall where they may. This seems like the most elegant solution because it would remove any chance of the system being gamed, but it would change the math of a lot of campaign strategies very quickly (i.e. no more weighted votes; just brute weight of numbers).

One could also see a continuation of the five-month long drama where “question until it fails” comes into play. Throw enough fog up, question the outcome of any ranked choice voting format, create just enough space for lawyers to get involved and quite suddenly aspersions become dispersions. Some courtroom throws out the results, Virginia Republicans get a primary instead and a mere plurality among seven candidates wins. Such a scenario would be an utter disaster for Virginia Republicans (but a payday for the consultants who would make total bank off of the chaos).

Obviously, you can see how machinations and calculations are coming into play. Seeing as you are a loyal TRS reader, you — all of us — are most certainly smarter than such vulgarities.

No dispersions intended.

Yet with 134 different localities — some of whom are split by congressional districts — each with weighted convention votes split among those who show up? Ranked choice voting now becomes something you just can’t run on an MS Excel spreadsheet anymore.

This has the potential to get complicated quickly. Unit chairmen no longer have authority over the meetings; the unassembled convention sites all report to Richmond directly.

Wouldn’t it be better then to simply dispense with the weighted votes and just go with a headcount method? Problem solved with inserting votes into a Star Chamber. This is something you really could do on MS Excel.

Simple and elegant solutions. Right?

So headcount method it is, then?

Most likely. It seems to neatly resolve most everyone’s concerns about ballot integrity, chain of custody, and the Star Chamber problem.

From our mouths to Reagan’s ears, anyhow.

Bear in mind that there are a ton of people both inside and outside the Republican Party that want this convention to be bloody and acidic. Or worse, who are actively working to make this a total wreck and want us to fail.

Certainly McAuliffe wants this; certainly the national Democrats want this.

Then there are the clowns who are simply all too eager to run on some variation of Assad or we burn the country. If their candidate doesn’t win, then screw it all and let the Democrats wreck our 1A and 2A protections.

Good luck with that. How’s it been working for us these last eight years?

So unless the last eight years of Democratic arrogance have served you and your families well? That would be the most stupid thing we could possibly do.

In short, let us not allow disagreements to make us disagreeable. Ranked choice balloting is an excellent idea. Ranked choice primaries are an excellent idea (for the future). So let us iron out the problems, show that Republicans can run our own party and in good cheer, and then let’s get out and make the case for working families and a free society.

I think we are all on board with that, right?

Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.