[EL] Recognizing a Constitutional "Right to Rank"

[Thomas J. Cares]

I challenge this list to consider that in modern times, voters have been
denied a constitutional right to cast ranked choice ballots.

It's not controversial that the fracturing of support, in plurality styles
of voting, frequently contorts 'consent of the governed.'

The government has no legitimate basis to continue this practice.

Our civilization is, by many orders of magnitude, more robust than at the
time of our nation's founding. It is no longer constitutional for the
republic to rely on the "simplicity" of plurality voting.

It has many unconstitutional consequences.

New views and marginalized groups/parties can't gain traction gradually.
(This is a very big deal!)

For no legitimate reason, voters are denied substantive expression of their
full feelings of preference on a ballot.

Nader supporters, for example, were denied a constitutional right to give
official ballot-support for Nader, without foregoing their due influence
over who would prevail between Bush and Gore.

That this proposition that one must either weigh in only on their
preference between the best guess of whom the most viable candidates are,
or waste their vote, *is not a constitutional proposition. *

I do think the RCV movement has wasted enough time asking electeds to act
in good faith to ensure legitimacy in a broken republic whose dubious form
sourced them with power.

It is time for good attorneys to pursue recognition of a constitutionally
protected Right to Rank.

The government has no legitimate reason to deny its electorate their due
influence of a ranked ballot, *and the consequences are proving tremendous.*

Eventually, good people in law realized that it was no longer
constitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry and eventually
brought the SCOTUS to agree - something once very hard to imagine. I'm
hoping to plant the seeds of realization that it is no longer
constitutional to deny voters the vital benefits of ranked choice/instant
runoff elections.

-Tom Cares
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