Jan. 15, 2024
One of the top issues in Madison right now is ranked choice voting.
Currently Wisconsin residents vote in primary and general elections, and the person with the most votes wins.
A lot of lawmakers want to change that to a system where there are no primaries, and voters rank candidates according to their preference.
Everywhere this has been tried, it’s led to confusion and suspicion. Tallying the results is convoluted and slow. The candidate with the most votes doesn’t always win. It never favors republicans.
And yet, here in Wisconsin, a lot of republicans are pushing this change… and there’s a lot of money from the left pouring in trying to convince others.
A public hearing on January 9th turned into a lovefest between democrats and the republicans pushing ranked choice voting – something that came off as very off-putting in this era of zero-sum-game politics. How can this be the one issue that so many people on the right and left agree on, when the idea is so objectively and demonstratively bad?
Fortunately, not everyone on the right thinks bringing ranked choice voting to Wisconsin is a good idea. Today on the MacIver newsmakers podcast we’re joined by State Senator Duey Stroebel with his take on why the forces and factors behind this effort.