Preferential Primary is an organization dedicated to promoting ranked choice voting, an alternative to the standard plurality voting system, in Republican Party primary elections. ¹ According to Preferential Primary, ranked choice voting supports candidates who better reflect the will of the voter majority and subverts extremism. ²

Background

Preferential Primary’s website does not provide any information on the organization’s structure or personnel besides a sentence on its “contact us” page stating: “We are Republican voters, current and former elected officials, state and national party leaders, grassroots activists, and veteran campaign operatives.” ¹

Ranked Choice Voting

Preferential Primary supports ranked choice voting, also known as preferential voting or instant run-off voting. Under a ranked choice voting system voters rank the candidates against each other rather than vote for a single candidate. ²

For instance, if there are four candidates (A through D), a voter might rank Candidate B as first, Candidate A as second, Candidate C as third, and Candidate D as first. In the first round, all votes are counted, and if any candidate receives more than 50 percent of the first preference choices, the candidate wins. However, if no candidate reaches that majority, then the candidate with the least amount of first choices is eliminated, and all the voters who ranked that candidate as first have their votes redistributed to their second ranked choice. This process continues until either one candidate has been preferred on a majority of ballots or there are two candidates left and the one with the highest number of preferences wins. ²

The current dominant voting system used in most United States elections is known as plurality voting or first-past-the-post. According to Preferential Primary, plurality voting has numerous deficiencies compared to ranked choice voting, including a tendency to encourage voters to vote “strategically” rather than for their preferred candidates, to encourage negative campaigning, to reward candidates with “minority views and minority support” since majority candidates tend to split their supporters, and to induce voter apathy. ²

Another alternative voting system is two-round runoffs, in which two or more rounds of voting are held with the least popular candidates eliminated between rounds until a single candidate passes a percentage threshold. According to Preferential Primary, this system’s key flaw is the costs it imposes on governments to hold multiple elections. For example, the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs in 2020 cost Georgian taxpayers $75 million. ²

Criticism

Preferential Primary acknowledges that some Republicans oppose ranked-choice voting by citing the example of Alaska which has had ranked choice voting since 2020. In 2022, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) was the Republican front-runner for Alaska’s at-large U.S. Congressional seat in a special election. Palin’s loss to U.S. Representative Mary Peltola (D-AK) has been attributed to the state’s ranked choice voting system; about 60 percent of voters supported Republican candidates, but due to relatively higher secondary preference for Pelota over Palin, the former won the election. After the election, many Republicans condemned ranked choice voting, including former President Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) who called the system “a scam to rig elections.” ^{3 4 5}

According to Preferential Primary, the Republican failure in the Alaska special election can be attributed to the state’s open primary system wherein the top four candidates of any party who get the most votes run in the general election. Preferential Primary claims that the system encouraged former Governor Palin to campaign against other Republican candidates, thereby splitting voter preferences, arguing, “This election was a classic example of how campaigns should not be run, but we shouldn’t shoot ourselves in the foot because of one election in Alaska.” ³

2024 Vice President Preference Poll

In May 2024, Preferential Primary held an “unscientific poll” of 497 Republican voters on who should be former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election. Choices were between U.S. Senators J.D. Vance (R-OH), Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); U.S. Representatives Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Nancy Mace (R-SC); Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R), and former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson. ⁶

Although Senator Vance, who was later chosen by former President Trump as his running mate, received the most first choice votes (24 percent), he was defeated in the final round of the polling by Senator Scott. ⁶

1. “Contact Us.” Preferential Primary. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://preferentialprimary.org/about-us/.
2. “What is Preferential Voting?” Preferential Primary. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://preferentialprimary.org/what-is-preferential-voting/.
3. “Criticism of Preferential Voting.” Preferential Primary. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://preferentialprimary.org/criticism-of-preferential-voting/.
4. “Sarah Palin.” Ballotpedia. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://ballotpedia.org/Sarah_Palin.
5. Shabad, Rebecca. “After Sarah Palin’s election loss, Sen. Tom Cotton calls ranked-choice voting ‘a scam.’” NBC News. September 1, 2022. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/sarah-palins-election-loss-sen-tom-cotton-calls-ranked-choice-voting-s-rcna45834
6. “2024 VP Preferential Poll.” Preferential Primary. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://preferentialprimary.org/2024-vp-preferential-poll/.