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LETTER: Ranked-choice voting a bad idea

Ron Peltier wrote to “educate” us on the wonders of ranked-choice voting (Aug. 7 Review-Journal). Here is why Democrats want ranked-choice voting.

Suppose you live in a state where there was a Gray Party and a Pink Party. Let’s say the Gray Party has 34 percent of all citizens. Not quite enough to push your way through. Let’s say the Pink Party only has 29 percent of all citizens (Gee, those percentages look familiar). How can the Gray Party assure dominance?

Well, if we can get at least two people to run in the Gray Party, and get ranked-choice ballots, and a representative amount turn out to vote, then we will be assured of having the No. 1 and No. 2 candidates. Our top two candidates can get 34 percent of the vote, while the Pink Party can get no more than 29 percent. This assumes that independents will vote along the same split. We can keep the Pink Party from having any representation at all. Then we can finally put to bed this silly idea of minority party rights.

But our Constitution guarantees minority party rights — if they can get elected. Thus, with ranked-choice voting, the majority keeps the minority from ever being elected.

This bad idea, like so many other bad ideas, comes from California. The state that is No. 1 in poverty, No. 1 in homelessness and No. 1 in retail crime. It is run by a solid Democrat majority. Let’s send these bad California ideas back to California. This is Nevada. We don’t want to be ruled by bad California ideas.

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