Resolution Opposing Ranked Choice Voting

WHEREAS, Ranked Choice Voting violates the traditional principle of
“One Person, One Vote” in our elections and is specifically designed to negate
the will of a majority of voters with an illusory appeal that a majority of voters
chose the winning candidate;

WHEREAS, Ranked Choice Voting is purposely designed to be a more
complicated process which relies upon the information deficit of the majority of
the electorate, leading to increased confusion, increased voter errors, increased
delays in voting and vote tallies, and is also an extremely difficult process to audit;

WHEREAS, Ranked Choice Voting which promotes the ranking of 2nd,
3rd, or lower place votes, which should not matter in our elections, the process
often leads to the election of a 2nd, 3rd, or even lower place finisher, and
effectively increases the chances that a voter’s first choice cannot win, or that a
voter’s ballot is disqualified and discarded;

WHEREAS, in an examination of 96 Ranked Choice Voting races from
across the country the data shows that the eventual winner failed to receive a
true majority of the votes cast over 61 percent of the time (Maine Policy
Institute);

WHEREAS, Ranked Choice Voting actually increases political polarization
between the electorate, and disenfranchises the majority of voters through a
phenomenon known as ballot exhaustion due to overvotes, undervotes, or
ranking of candidates already eliminated from their initial ballot;

WHEREAS, Ranked Choice Voting dramatically increases the cost of elections, NOW, therefore

BE IT RESOLVED that the Polk County Republican Party unanimously
opposes any and all forms of Ranked Choice Voting in Oregon for all elected
offices