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HARRY ROTH: Ranked-Choice Voting Creates Poor Leaders
Staff • Nov 25, 2024

Oakland residents recently recalled their mayor for the first time in the city's history. Mayor Sheng Thao became mayor in 2022 after the ninth round of ranked-choice voting, where she received enough second-place votes to win the election. 

Harry Roth, director of outreach for Save Our States, wrote about this in the Daily Caller. 

Thao’s win in 2022 was made possible by RCV. The novel election system creates winners out of losers by allowing a candidate who received more second-place (or third-place, fourth-place, etc.) votes to win even if another candidate had more first-place votes. This is exactly how Thao squeaked out a 677-vote win.

Her opponent, former Democratic Oakland City Councilmen Loren Taylor, received the most first-place votes but was under 50 percent in the initial round. Because of that, Thao was able to win in the ninth round. And while she had 50.3 percent of the remaining votes, that total was just 45.6 percent of the votes cast in the first round (11,787 “exhausted” ballots were excluded by the final round)."

Read the whole piece at the Daily Caller