The interesting thing about RCV is the number of names they attach to it. In various countries that use this system it can be called any number of things, Apportioned voting, Preferable voting, Approval voting, Instant Runoff Voting. It is all the same. It does not pass the smell test of "Arrow, Condorcet, or Diverger's " Laws. The simple mathematics of this system defies all reason. In Fact, in an earlier segment of this expose' even Lewis Carroll deduced the impossibility of a Rank Choice Voting system electing a real candidate who just runs an awesome campaign and 'WOW's the electorate. Carroll agreed with Arrow that, in effect, you ARE voting best to last. Any attempt to change the system, or mechanism is just screwing with the mechanism. It does not present a candidate with some awesome idea. It just rig's it to ensure the trailing candidate wins by harvesting secondary votes from lesser candidates who lost outright in the first place. In 1850 MIT Professor William Ware dabbled in this and took those thrown away votes to trick the RCV idea so that the loser's voters could still exchange their second and third choices to elect a winner. The European system of RCV (at that time) just tossed all those third, fourth, etc losers outright. Ware tweaked this and thus we have modern day RCV in America.
As John Stuart Mill stated voting is a trust between candidate and voter. If voting is a 'right' then it becomes property. And, what is to stop a person from selling his/her property? Or, in this case, 'Ranking' your vote? You are essentially selling your vote. You choose the candidate you WANT to win then selling your vote to the lesser candidate you may (or may not) be happy with.
In my presentation last August on RCV former founder of The Worcester Tea Party Ken Mandile said that I was wrong on RCV being a form of vote harvesting. That vote harvesting is the collection of fake ballots and RCV is not that. Well, he is partially correct and partially incorrect.
My two great guests on my podcast Tom Weaver of truethevote.org and radio host John Matthews from California who runs an organization to track voting have both been on my podcast several times, have read my expose' and agree and concur that Rank Choice Voting IS a form of vote harvesting.
The political group known as Voter Choice for Massachusetts has accomplished the task of collecting the required signatures to put RCV on the November 2020 ballot. It is unknown at this time who funded this campaign. Petitions can be easily distributed grassroots.
Their great claim is that they garnered signatures from all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns. If that is true then they only had to get 320 signatures from each city and town. An easy feat. You can be sure of the PR on this one.
Where the shenanigans start is if the people of Massachusetts reject RCV. Then the big money will pour in for an end run to the State Supreme Court to overturn the results of the vote.
https://www.facebook.com/voterchoice2020/posts/159563875401168?notif_id=1576420542974705¬if_t=comment_mention
In March of 2010 Burlington VT voted by referendum to repeal RCV in it's Mayoral Elections. A year later then Mayor Kiss attempted to bring it back. It was rejected again by a 58-42 margin. Unfortunately the key problem that RCV refuses to address is low voter turnout. Out of the 33,218 registered voters in Burlington VT only 7641 bothered to show up. Just as the low voter turnout re-elected Fall River's indicted Mayor and electing Ocasio Cortez low voter turnout is a must happen for RCV to succeed.
https://rangevoting.org/Burlington.html?fbclid=IwAR0FcUqzexbF26Xc_QV-xmdlnm86E7i4DJwZHUOaKHyW9AJxOx9Fil2HK8A
Interesting. Former Democrat Alderman, awarded a contract to design a new voting system. Who wrote that check?
More importantly? Who funded the fight against the repeal of RCV in Burlington?
The advocacy group supporting RCV in Burlington, Fifty Percent Matters, raked in over $20,400.00. Donations over $100 all came from outside Burlington which include $6500 from FairVote.org from Maryland. $1000 from Raymond Pecor (more on him later), $750 from Dem. St. Sen, Hinda Miller and $400 from League of Women Voters.
But the Gold Medal goes to the Vermont Public Interest Research Group with under half the total raised. $10,000.00.
https://www.vpirg.org/
In 1975, the Vermont Public Interest Research and Education Fund (VPIREF) was established as VPIRG's 501(c)3 outreach and education arm. For over 40 years, VPIRG has brought the voice of average Vermont citizens to the public policy debates concerning the environment, health care, consumer protection and democracy.
While the 2010 VPIRG Exec. Director Paul Burns was quick to decry the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United; "Corporations are not people". He had no problem raking in over 1.5 million dollars for 2010. 28% from Foundations and Grants (many corporate funded) and 2% listed as 'other'.
In fact RCV groups nationwide are anything but 'grassroots'. As I pointed out in previous segments the donors are corporations. Publicly funded corporations in the form of grants. Vermont is 15th in Democrat donations. The state is overwhelmingly Left.
In 2019-2020 over 86% of all money raised by PAC's, individuals, foundations, etc went to Democrat candidates or Democrat causes.
https://www.opensecrets.org/states/summary.php?state=VT
In 2019-2020 over 86% of all money raised by PAC's, individuals, foundations, etc went to Democrat candidates or Democrat causes.
https://www.opensecrets.org/states/summary.php?state=VT
| Category | Total | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Total Itemized Contributions ** | $2,384,211 | 47 |
| Total to Candidates and Parties | $2,408,996 | N/A |
| Total to Democrats | $2,093,194 | 41 |
| Percent to Democrats | 86.9%† | 1 |
| Total to Republicans | $275,023 | 50 |
| Percent to Republicans | 11.4%† | 50 |
| Individual donations ($200+)* | $2,833,558 | 47 |
| Soft money donations | $56,052 | 42 |
| PAC donations | $84,513 | 46 |
Tactical Nomination and Borda
Rank Choice Voting becomes the Trojan Horse to Democrat hegemony because it promises to throw up a large number of candidates from that party. In a RCV style election you can have several candidates from the same party all getting ranked. The winner doesn't matter because in the end you elect either the winning candidate or a second place someone who shares your ideology. This is known as Tactical Nomination.
The third tier candidate gets eliminated. In some cases even the rankings get tossed. In a race where one party's voters outnumber another the chances of having any representative opposition voice is nil. In fact lesser tier candidates can be purposely buried by vote rigging.
The Borda count was developed independently several times, as early as 1435 by Nicholas of Cusa, but is named for the 18th-century French mathematician and naval engineer Jean-Charles de Borda, who devised the system in 1770.
The Borda count determines the outcome of a debate or the winner of an election by giving each candidate, for each ballot, a number of points corresponding to the number of candidates ranked lower.
This is insanity. The only places a RCV/Borda system is used in elections are Slovenia, Nauru, Kiribati and up until 1970 in Finland, but only for a select cadre of candidates.
And this is exactly what Mill warned us about. As European Parliaments grew and gained more power over the Monarchies voting was reserved only to the privileged few. The RCV system adopted was devised by the aristocracy. This ensured that only preferred candidates gained the appropriate seats.
It is a fact that every city using RCV as their system of voting is all Democrat. In an odd twist RCV fulfills one of it's promises. Eliminating the 'spoiler' candidate. No third party in their right mind would waste money running in these areas. Any Republican who runs faces (at best) some of the poorest numbers. Even 2nd or 3rd place rankings from sympathetic moderate Dems wouldn't be enough to clench a win.
With Maine now firmly a RCV state and the ballot question in Massachusetts Vermont is poised to become the next state to fall. It is a known fact that the players pushing RCV are not just going to settle for cities or even states. As I have proven in past segments with the quotes from the Fairvote.org site itself they want to rewrite the Presidential elections as well. They are landing key states on each coast as well as growing in battleground states. The New Hampshire Primaries are considering RCV as well as the Iowa Caucuses.
There WILL come a time when Democrats regain control over the White House and/or Legislature. As RCV grows in numbers, locations, the push to register illegals and the elimination of the Electoral College.
RCV, like the Trojan Horse it is will present itself as the solution to our election problems.
.... And That Is The Diatribe...
With Maine now firmly a RCV state and the ballot question in Massachusetts Vermont is poised to become the next state to fall. It is a known fact that the players pushing RCV are not just going to settle for cities or even states. As I have proven in past segments with the quotes from the Fairvote.org site itself they want to rewrite the Presidential elections as well. They are landing key states on each coast as well as growing in battleground states. The New Hampshire Primaries are considering RCV as well as the Iowa Caucuses.
There WILL come a time when Democrats regain control over the White House and/or Legislature. As RCV grows in numbers, locations, the push to register illegals and the elimination of the Electoral College.
RCV, like the Trojan Horse it is will present itself as the solution to our election problems.
.... And That Is The Diatribe...
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