Bill to prohibit ‘ranked-choice’ voting in WV awaits governor’s signature
By Matthew Young, RealWV
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A bill to prevent West Virginia from considering a “ranked-choice” voting system passed through both the Senate and the House of Delegates last week, and now awaits Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s final approval.
Introduced by Sen. Jack David Woodrum, R-Summers, SB 490 seeks to prohibit all governments within the state from adopting a system where voters would rank political candidates in order of their preference. While this is not part of West Virginia’s current election system, the bill restricts the concept from future consideration.
SB 490’s third Senate reading happened on Tuesday. While speaking in support of the bill, Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, used a sports analogy in an attempt to explain how ranked-choice voting works.
“I want to paint a picture for you all, six months from now WVU is playing Pitt in football at Mountaineer Field,” Oliverio began. “Crazy fourth quarter, and the Mountaineers score three touchdowns and come back and win 42-41.”
“42-41 the Mountaineers win, and the referee says, ‘No, no, no. Pitt scored more points than WVU did in the first three quarters. WVU only really won one quarter, and Pitt won three quarters, so the winner of the game is Pitt,’” Oliverio continued. “That should help you understand ranked-choice voting.”
“We live in a society where we have winners and losers,” Oliverio added. “This bill just re-states that.”
Challenging the accuracy of Oliverio’s analogy was Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion. While admittedly dispassionate about the bill either way, Garcia attempted to add clarification to Oliverio’s explanation, saying, “You’ve got two teams playing – I don’t think that’s the same thing.”
“What we’ve had in a number of different elections are multiple – five, six, seven people that are on the ballot,” Garcia noted. “Now if somebody can get 50% plus one, you win that election. That’s all that you need in ranked-choice voting. But that’s like saying let’s put the Hokies in there, with the Mountaineers, and the Panthers, and I just don’t think it’s the same thing.”
“We have had elections recently – mostly primary elections – where the winner has had thirty-something percent of the vote,” Garcia added. “A third of the people said, ‘That’s the person that I want.’”
Despite the conflicting football metaphors, SB 490 passed the Senate by a vote of 31-2, with only Garcia and fellow Democrat, Minority Leader Mike Woelfel of Cabell County, voting against it.
On Wednesday, SB 490 was received by the House of Delegates, and immediately considered with no committee reference. The bill was read a second time on Thursday, and then a third time Friday. Ultimately the House voted along party-lines in favor of passage.
SB 490 is but one of several bills designed to further regulate state elections that are currently under consideration. Freshly-elected Sen. Tom Willis, R-Berkeley, introduced a plan which would require judicial and board of education elections to be made partisan, that is currently pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Other proposed legislation includes a plan to exclude unaffiliated voters from West Virginia’s primary elections, and the requirement that all municipalities within the state hold their elections on the same day. All three plans in their various forms are seeing movement through both bodies of the state legislature.
RealWV will provide updates regarding the status of all legislation discussed in this report as additional information is made available.
