COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — A concern about ranked-choice voting is that it splits the number of votes from the majority party and paves the way to victory for minority candidates.
Luke Mayville recently had this discussion with someone who asked if that's what happened in the 1992 presidential election when Bill Clinton won with 42% of the vote because Ross Perot ran against George H.W. Bush, splitting the conservative vote.
"The answer to that is if they had had ranked-choice voting, it would have solved that problem," he said Wednesday evening.
The more conservative Perot voter most likely would have ranked Bush second, and Perot would have been eliminated when he came in last place, Mayville said.
"Those votes would have then gone to George H.W. Bush, putting him over the top and he would have won the election," Mayville said. "Sorry if you're a Bill Clinton fan, but that's what ranked-choice voting actually does. It allows for the candidate who really does have the most support in the community to win."
Mayville, the co-founder of the Reclaim Idaho movement, was one of four panelists who participated in the On Point Forum: "Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting — A Good Idea?" presented by Democrats and Republicans Together, the League of Women Voters of Kootenai County, Nonpartisan Doctors of Coeur d'Alene and Veterans for Idaho Voters.
Mayville was joined by College of Idaho professor and director of graduate programs McKay Cunningham, Veterans for Idaho Voters board member and Air Force veteran Christie Wood and author of "Accessible Elections: How the States Can Help Americans Vote" Michael Ritter, who is also an assistant professor of political science at Washington State University.
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