Opposing Proposals Regarding Ranked Choice Voting in Wisconsin

Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 -- 8:01 AM

(Anya van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio) As jurisdictions around the country enact new approaches to casting ballots, two opposing proposals in the Wisconsin state Legislature take aim at one idea: ranked choice voting.

According to Anya van Wagtendonk with Wisconsin Public Radio, that's a process by which voters rank candidates in order of preference. As lower vote-getters are eliminated, their votes are redistributed to the next-preferred candidates, in what amounts to a series of run-offs until one final candidate emerges.

Supporters of this process say it allows political minorities to still get a say, discouraging hyperpolarization. Opponents say it's confusing and slows the gears of democracy. That opposition fuels a proposed constitutional amendment to ban the practice in Wisconsin.

The GOP-led initiative would mean no Wisconsin election could utilize the process, and more broadly bars voters from voting for candidates of multiple political parties in partisan primaries.

While there's no push for ranked choice voting as it exists in Maine or New York City, a bipartisan bill would bring one element of that process to Wisconsin. Deemed Final Five voting, the proposal would allow the top five vote-getters of any party in a Congressional primary to continue to the general election.

During the general election, Wisconsin voters would go through the ranking process with those five candidates. The idea, said Sarah Eskrich, the executive director of Democracy Found, which advocates for Final Five voting in Wisconsin, is to ensure greater accountability among elected officials.

She argues that a polarized electorate leaves many lawmakers accountable only to the most extreme elements of their base, and therefore not incentivized to moderate their positions, appeal to broad groups, or work on policies that would impact the most people.

Under Final Five, a general election wouldn't necessarily have one Democrat and one Republican. Instead, voters would choose among five candidates who could represent a range of policies among one or several parties.

Eskrich argues that can promote real competition even in safe seats, forcing candidates to modulate their positions, rather than adopting the most extreme positions that appeal to highly motivated primary voters.

The Republican co-sponsors of the anti-ranked choice voting amendment say that bringing a new way of voting to the state undermines already fragile trust in elections.

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