Perusing the Oregon Voter’s Pamphlet I came across something that concerns and disturbs me regarding the Arguments in Opposition for Measure 117, which would give voters the option to rank candidates when voting.
Here is a quote from the Explanatory Statement (pg 61 of the Voter’s Pamphlet):
“With ranked choice voting, voters MAY rank candidates for office in order of preference. Voters MAY choose to rank multiple candidate or ONLY ONE CANDIDATE for each office, as well as write-in candidate(s).” Capitals are my emphasis.
I counted 11 Arguments in Opposition that stated a voter must rank all candidates, which according to the above quote is obviously not true.
Since the Explanatory Statement is very clear, I have to believe that the authors deliberately lied. And if they lied about something so obvious, what else might they be lying about?
I for one have had ENOUGH of lying; of people saying anything they want, repeatedly, to get you to believe their lies. It’s a page out of Hitler’s play book.
Please read the Voter’s Pamphlet CAREFULLY and VOTE.
Full disclosure—I haven’t decided yet how I will vote on Measure 117. In theory it sounds good and that it would give independent candidates a better chance of winning which I support. I do have some concerns about this particular process—it is only for some candidates, it is confusing and it will probably be costly monetarily.
Here are quotes from those in opposition.
“RCV (ranked choice voting) disenfranchises voters. Voters must rank ALL candidates” Karen Schmidlin page 79. Capitals are hers.
“The voters want to make their choices and not be forced into ranking or voting for ALL candidates, including the people they do NOT want to vote for.” John F Woods pages 80-81. Capitals are his.
“RCV lays the foundation for ballots to NOT be counted. RCV requires every candidate to be ranked. If a voter fails to rank a candidate the entire ballot is discarded.” Suni B Danforth page 81. Capital are theirs. “Every” and “entire ballot is discarded” were underlined.
“RCV will: Force you to select candidates you don’t support.” Mary Chalkiopoulos page 82 (in bold and underlined.)
“It can be confusing when voters must rank multiple candidates instead of just choosing the one they want.” Elaine M Woods pages 82 and 83.
“If there is a slate of five candidates, you must rank them 1 to 5. If you want to only vote for one of the candidates and, consequently, not rank the other four, you ballot will be thrown out.” Lynn K Harris page 83
“RCV forces you to rank all candidates even if you do not want to vote for them.” Jennifer Adishian pages 84 and 85.
“Measure 117 makes it HARDER to VOTE. First, it will take longer to fill out a ballot because every candidate in a race must be ranked—you cannot just pick your favorite candidate and move on. Second, because each candidate must be ranked, from most favorite to least favorite, many more mistakes can be made.” Eric W Reschke, Werner For Oregon pages 86 and 87. Capitals are his.
“The biggest problem with RCV is that is FORCES you to rank ALL candidates, including the people you do NOT want to vote for.” Kim Rice. Page 89. Capitals are theirs.
“With RCV, you need to rank everyone running for each race.” Patty DeBois page 89.
“In rank choice voting, voters rank candidates for an office from first to last.” Darlene Karner page 90.
“RCV requires voters to rank candidates in order of preference.” Mary Loseke page 93
Barbara McLaughlin
