2021 Utah County RCV Elections Analysis

Independent researchers were given raw ballot-order data by the Utah County Clerk to allow an analysis of the Ranked-Choice Voting Pilot Program in Utah. One of the issues Utah Election Integrity promotes is allowing access to all ballot data for pilot voting programs to outside parties. Without analyzing the results of pilot voting projects, how can the people and their representatives know if the pilot project worked? They can't.

Realizing that Complexity Favors the Well-Connected. Given that, does RCV make it easier or more difficult for the average voter to vote and to understand how their vote impacted the outcome of their election?

In point of fact, there were many concerns arising from this analysis of the 2021 RCV elections. Moab City contained a significant number of problems that, without this analysis, no one would even be aware of. Ranking your candidate last (or second to last) by a mere 3 people causes him to WIN. But if those same 3 people had ranked him FIRST, he would have lost. This counter-intuitive way that ballots are tallied is an acknowledged "feature" of Ranked-choice voting. If ranking your preferred candidate first causes him to lose, how does that even make sense? Or vise versa?

One of the acknowledged concerns by the main proponent of Ranked-Choice Voting, FairVote, indicates a discrepancy in how much and how fully ballots are filled out by individual demographics of voters. FairVote said,

“...[the] prevalence of ranking three candidates was lowest among African-Americans, Hispanics, voters with less education and those whose first language was not English,”

Ballot Confusion is dismissed by proponents as not really occurring due to voter surveys. However, if 58% of your ballots are discarded outright or subsequently discarded in the process due to VOTER ERROR, as occurred in Genola City Council Seat 1, how well does the process work for determining the consent of the governed?

Moreover, these problems were not limited to just a couple of cities who conducted RCV. Of the 17 races, 7 of them had 10% or more of their ballots discarded at some point along the process due to VOTER ERROR (e.g. ranking more than one candidate for a given rank or no candidates for a given rank)