Can Ranked-Choice Voting Improve Maine's Elections? Professor McDaniel Comments

MAINE REPUBLIC -- Last year, San Francisco State University professor Jason McDaniel published a study asserting that ranked choice decreased turnout among less-experienced voters, including minorities and younger people. “We have hundreds of years of reforms in this country of the voting system. And the ones that make voting more complicated tend to have an adverse effect on the level of participation,” he says. FairVote sharply challenged the findings, saying the study focused too much on a noncompetitive San Francisco mayoral race. But McDaniel stands by his research which, he says, shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with election reform.