Professor McDaniel Says Ranked-Choice Voting Hurts Turnout

THE DETROIT NEWS -- Some experts believe the new system, which requires several voter choices, will so complicate the process that people will be discouraged from voting. Jason McDaniel, a San Francisco State University political scientist, has studied the scheme and believes it will cause a decline in voting participation of between 4 and 7 percent, concentrated among those without language fluency or substantial education.

“These reformers are elitists who can’t imagine that people will turn off to the process,” he said. “But not everybody pays attention to politics the way we do. I look at the history of reform, and usually it weakens parties and makes voting harder.”