Katherine T. Bennett Testimony in Ohio: Ranked Choice Voting

ALEC Process and Procedures Task Force Director Katherine T. Bennett submitted written testimony to the Ohio Senate General Government Committee on ranked choice voting and its risks.

Read her testimony below:

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Katherine Bennett, and I am the Director of the Process and Procedures Task Force at The American Legislative Exchange Council. As a 501c3, nonpartisan organization, ALEC is dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.

Through nonpartisan research and analysis, ALEC believes there are substantial risks associated with adopting Ranked‑Choice Voting. Although it is often promoted as a modern improvement to our elections, the documented experiences of jurisdictions that have implemented it reveal a system that is more confusing, less transparent, and ultimately less fair to voters.

Ranked‑Choice Voting requires voters to rank multiple candidates rather than select just one. While this may seem like a small adjustment, it introduces a level of complexity that many voters struggle to navigate. Evidence from jurisdictions using RCV shows that voters frequently misunderstand how many candidates they must rank, how their rankings will be counted, or what happens if they choose not to rank every candidate. Even with extensive voter education efforts, confusion remains widespread. When voters do not fully understand the system, their ballots are more likely to be mis-marked or interpreted in ways they did not intend.

This confusion contributes directly to a serious problem known as ballot exhaustion. Under RCV, if a voter’s ranked candidates are eliminated in early rounds and the voter did not rank every candidate, their ballot simply stops counting in later rounds. In practice, this means that a voter who clearly marks the candidate they are voting for, may not have their vote count in the final tally. In several documented elections, the number of exhausted ballots has been significant—sometimes even larger than the margin of victory. A system that discards ballots before the final round cannot be said to treat every vote equally.

RCV undermines transparency. Traditional elections are easy for the public to understand: the candidate with the most votes wins. RCV replaces this with a multi‑round tabulation process that is difficult for voters to follow and even harder to audit. The counting process often takes days or weeks, and the complexity of the tabulation makes it more difficult to detect errors or explain results to the public. A voting system should be straightforward, verifiable, and easy for citizens to trust. RCV moves in the opposite direction.

Implementing RCV places substantial burdens on election administrators. The system requires new equipment, specialized software, and extensive training for staff. Smaller jurisdictions may struggle to meet these demands, and even well‑resourced areas often face higher costs and longer counting times. At a moment when election officials are already under strain, adding layers of complexity is not a responsible choice.

ALEC’s model policy, the One Citizen, One Vote Act, was adopted by our members as a response to the threat Ranked Choice Voting poses to the states. Our election system should be simple, transparent, and accessible to every voter. RCV introduces confusion, reduces clarity, and risks disenfranchising the very people it claims to empower. Ohioans deserve a system that makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

Thank you and I am happy to stand for questions.