Op-Ed: Prop 1 Ranked Choice Voting Is Expensive

Note: The following Op-Ed was submitted by Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.

Six years ago, Reclaim Idaho promised the people of Idaho that Medicaid Expansion would only cost around $400 million a year and that, since it was mostly covered by the federal government, it would be practically free. Today, taxpayers are shelling out many times that amount, and with the national debt now over $35 trillion, that money is anything but free.

So, you’ll have to excuse me if I take predictions about the cost of Ranked Choice Voting from the same crowd with a huge grain of salt.

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The organizers of Proposition 1 claim it will be cheap and easy. The Secretary of State, however, disagrees. Last month, Secretary Phil McGrane estimated that implementing Ranked Choice Voting in Idaho could cost as high as $40 million!

Why so much? Contrary to what the backers of Proposition 1 and their media allies might say, this initiative isn’t about opening the primaries. It is rather a complex and radical overhaul of the way we elect candidates in Idaho.

Currently, each of Idaho’s 44 counties runs its own elections. Some small counties hand-count paper ballots, others use polling machines, and some use paper ballots counted by optical scanners. Switching to Ranked Choice Voting means installing expensive machines with proprietary software from companies like Dominion in every county.

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Because of the way Ranked Choice Voting works, auditing elections will become more difficult too. Right now, the Secretary of State’s office conducts random audits after each election to verify that votes were properly counted. But with Ranked Choice Voting, not only will we be waiting days or even weeks for results, but it will also take teams of PhD mathematicians to verify that votes were counted correctly. This will absolutely shatter trust in our elections.

Ranked Choice Voting is expensive, complex, and completely unnecessary. Just two years ago, the Legislature boasted about saving $700,000 by eliminating the presidential primary. Ranked Choice Voting could cost more than 50 times that!

What could we do with $40 million instead? More funding for schools? Fix our highways? Or — here’s a radical idea — cut taxes and give it back to the hardworking people of Idaho who earned it in the first place!

So, let me get this straight: We’re supposed to completely change the way we vote, requiring all new machines that cannot be inspected or audited, and this is going to increase trust in our elections? I don’t think so!

Idahoans deserve an election system that is reliable, trustworthy, and doesn’t break the bank. We have that now so why on earth would we mess with it?