Prairie State Wire

GOP activist William Mueller is pushing back against Ranked Choice Voting. 

The system is currently under consideration in the Illinois General Assembly. 

“The only reason this is an issue is because the left knows that most people are opposed to the bull roar they are selling and can't win a straight-up election,” Mueller said. "Wake up."

He called the system's supporters "nuts."  Muller encouraged the people to "wake up" and fight the bill.

“It is another scheme hatched by the crazies that can't define a woman, tell us there are 40+ genders, think we left Afghanistan with honor (after leaving 80 billion in weapons and the associated technology), think there is no crisis at the border when fentanyl is killing our young in records, think a gene therapy is more effective than natural immunity, spend trillions on a climate hoax generating record inflation and send FBI storm troopers to terrorize a pro-life father of 7 in the middle of the night after local prosecutors would not bring charges," Mueller said.

The bill under consideration is HB3749. Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), also known as instant runoff voting, would create an open primary in which voters are allowed to rank the candidates in the order of favor. If no candidate received more than 50% of the vote as the first choice the votes then go through rounds in which low-count vote-getters are eliminated until candidates are chosen based on their ranking in the balloting process. 

According to Ballotpedia, “If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, he or she is declared the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. First-preference votes cast for the failed candidate are eliminated, lifting the next-preference choices indicated on those ballots. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority of the adjusted votes.” This method is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority. 

The Illinois Opportunity Project’s Andy Bakker told WJBC the legislation will have a detrimental effect on the state’s election process. Bakker noted that RCV "is a scheme to disconnect elections from issues and allows candidates with marginal support to win.”

The introduction of Ranked Choice Voting would require new voting systems throughout the state as well. 

“Expense and funding absolutely is going to be a question that all the local election authorities are going to have for you,” Boone County Clerk Julie Bliss told legislators debating the bill in committee, Capitol News Illinois reported.