The Problems With Ranked Choice Voting

On April 4, 2024, Hans Von Spakovsky, Don Beezley, and Brad Beck joined the show. Heritage Foundation legal expert exposes the flaws of ranked choice voting, including ballot exhaustion, miscounting, and disproportionate harm to minority voters Former state representative analyzes Colorado’s 70% budget growth and argues that protecting property rights and getting government out of the way creates opportunity for citizens to flourish Small businessman.

Exposing the Flaws of Ranked Choice Voting

Start listening at 28:13 – Hour 1

Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, delivers a comprehensive critique of ranked choice voting (RCV). The election law expert argues that RCV represents one of the most confusing voting methods devised, pointing to Alaska’s experience where voters who narrowly approved the system in a 2020 referendum have now qualified a ballot measure to repeal it.

Von Spakovsky explains the mechanics: voters must rank all candidates rather than simply selecting their preferred choice. When no candidate achieves a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated and ballots are recounted with second choices elevated to first. This process, he notes, led to eight rounds of tabulation before Eric Adams was certified as New York City’s mayor. The phenomenon of “ballot exhaustion” compounds the problem, as voters who decline to rank every candidate see their ballots discarded in later rounds. In the Adams race, over 140,000 ballots were thrown out.

The Heritage Foundation scholar highlights that RCV disproportionately harms minority voters, citing a Princeton University study showing ballot exhaustion concentrates in minority neighborhoods. He recounts an Oakland school board race where election officials certified the wrong winner after three rounds, with the error only discovered months later by a private audit group.

“This tends to help marginal candidates, who are not the first choice of voters, to win elections.”

Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow, Heritage Foundation

Colorado’s Budget Crisis and the Defense of Liberty

Start listening at 58:31 – Hour 2

Don Beezley, former Colorado House District 33 representative and former Cato Institute staffer, joins Beck in studio to analyze Colorado’s political landscape. Beezley served during a pivotal period when a single-vote majority determined the legislature’s direction, and he reflects on how his 314-vote victory over then-incumbent Dianne Primavera, now lieutenant governor, demonstrated that grassroots campaigning still works.

The discussion turns to Colorado’s exploding state budget, which has grown roughly 70 percent in five years, from approximately $24 billion to over $40.6 billion. Beezley argues this growth stems from an “arrogant premise” that government can deploy citizens’ resources more effectively than the citizens themselves. He warns that the state’s aggressive taxation and regulation are beginning to drive out-migration from Colorado for the first time in recent memory.

Beezley emphasizes that government cannot create jobs, but it can create conditions for opportunity by protecting property rights and enforcing contracts. He draws a parallel to concerns over New York’s legal actions against Donald Trump’s business interests, warning that such actions create an “unsafe, unsecure legal environment” that chills investment regardless of political affiliation. The former legislator urges citizens to engage directly with their representatives through testimony and correspondence, though he counsels thoughtfulness over hostility.

“Freedom is a fundamental element of what it takes to be a successful human being. And guess what? That’s just our nature. And that’s why our rights don’t come from government, right? They come from our nature as human beings.”

Don Beezley, Former State Representative, HD33