A bill promoting weighted voting introduced by a Republican state Senator is a proposal for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in disguise, according to a county committee-woman.
Sponsored by State Sen. Mike Cierpiot, Senate Bill 16 would require weighted voting in county political party committees if it is approved.
“They're calling it weighted voting, but weighted voting is a method of counting Ranked Choice Voting, and based on how the weighting works, you could have a group of people that would be called dictators or you could have some people called dummies,” said Linda Rantz, a county committee-woman in Osage County. “Those are the ones whose votes become nothing.”
RCV, also known as Final Five Voting, is an election process in which voters choose among all candidates rather than from a partisan ballot. The top five vote-getters in a primary election then go on to a general election. The winner must earn 50 percent plus one, otherwise, a runoff election takes place.
“It just becomes a takeover of the county committees and the power in the committees so I think it's a terrible thing," Rantz said. "I don't think we should be focused on our own personal power on the committee. It damages everyone and the Democrats would be equally damaged by it because it would end up being enforced on their committees, too."
Rantz was at the capitol last week to testify against SB 16.
"They pulled it minutes before the hearing began because there was so much backlash," she said.
Currently, every committee person receives one vote, but SB 16 proposes they have a different number of votes, which would be decided based on the results of the governor’s or auditor’s race in the last primary, according to media reports.
"In our county, there are 12 votes and we each have an equal vote,” Rantz told the St. Louis Record. “That to me is grassroots. By doing the weighted voting, you give power to a few people and you have no power. You could have eight people on a committee who have no say in anything so why even go, at that point, because they don't even need you for the quorum.”
The duties of county committee people include raising money to help with campaigning as well as voting on candidates for special elections, amending the bylaws, and establishing resolutions.
"Ranked choice voting becomes more of a power grab as far as I'm concerned and it's not healthy," Rantz added. "I'm embarrassed that a Republican proposed it."