Having disenfranchised millions of American voters with the SAVE Act (which just passed the House, hopefully not the Senate), Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY24) is moving on to attack Ranked-Choice Voting. Tenney is OK with people voting if they do it her way and only for Republican candidates.
The Next Chapter in Voter Suppression
After promoting the SAVE Act (actually, the SCAM Act – Securing Control And Manipulation, because what better way to secure democracy than by limiting it to Republican voters), Claudia Tenney introduced a new bill to shift the balance toward Republican candidates even further – “The One Choice, One Vote Act.”
The “One Choice, One Vote Act” is a nationwide ban on ranked-choice voting (I thought Republicans didn’t like nationwide bans?), which I’ll explain in a second. In Tenney’s world, giving people more power to express their preferences is a threat.
It would seem common sense—another favorite Republican catchphrase—that voters win when they have more choices. Unless you’re Claudia Tenney. She’d prefer to keep elections simple:
One (Republican) Choice. One Vote. One Fixed Result.
Kind of like… Russia or Hungary
Tenney wants to lock down the ballot box and outlaw Ranked-Choice Voting before it spreads further. However, the One Choice, One Vote Act isn’t going to be easy to sell to voters like the SAVE Act.
The SAVE Act was easy to sell to people because they didn’t understand everything in it. Tenney and others misled them into thinking it was simply a Voter ID law. And Voter ID laws poll really well—about 80% of Americans support them.
- People think, “You need ID to board a plane or buy a drink—why not to vote?”
- People think it will prevent voter fraud even though voter fraud is practically nonexistent.
- It seems like a simple way to boost confidence in elections.
- And, of course, people like Tenney play the race card, claiming that Democrats want “millions of illegal immigrants” to vote.
For the record, Democrats do not want millions of undocumented immigrants voting. That’s a lie wrapped in a soundbite on Fox, designed to rile people up, not inform them.
In another post, I’ll explain what else besides VOTER ID is in the SAVE Act.
Ban on Ranked-Choice Voting a Harder Sell Than the SAVE Act
Now, contrast the Republican arguments favoring the SAVE ACT with their weak arguments against Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV). Tenney and Republicans argue that Ranked-Choice Voting is confusing and will cause chaos.
But Ranked-Choice Voting encourages broader consensus, reduces polarization, and ensures the winner has majority support.
But Tenney’s problem is “more choice.” When voters have more choice, extremists and base-only politicians—like her—struggle to survive. Tenney wouldn’t be in Congress if New York had Ranked-Choice Voting.
Imagine a dinner where Tenney picks the menu. You walk in hungry, and she points to two warming trays: one with mystery meat and one with day-old fish. You ask for another choice, and Tenney says, “More choices will cause chaos. It’s too confusing. Be happy with the choices we’ve decided you should have!”
That’s her entire argument against Ranked-Choice Voting. It’s simpler for her. Worse for voters.
She thinks voters are too stupid to be able to pick a first choice, then a second choice, then a third choice, and so on. Tenney has a very low opinion of the voters in her district.
When people get to rank their preferences, career politicians like Tenney end up off the menu. If Ranked-Choice Voting were available to voters in NY24, Tenney wouldn’t have been elected or re-elected.
The One Choice, One Vote Act, "To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to prohibit States from using ranked-choice voting to carry out an election for Federal office, and for other purposes".
What Is Ranked-Choice Voting?
Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) is exactly what it sounds like: a system where voters get to rank candidates—first choice, second, third—because people should be able to choose more than the lesser of two evils.
Instead of being forced to hold your nose and vote for the “least bad” candidate, you can vote your conscience and still have a say in the final outcome. Revolutionary, right?
RCV is already used in Maine and Alaska, as well as in New York City, San Francisco, Cambridge, and Minneapolis. It was even good enough for the Virginia Republican Party, which used it in 2021 to choose its nominees for statewide office. Utah’s Republican primaries use Ranked-Choice Voting too.
Ranked-Choice Voting isn’t new. It isn’t fringe. It isn’t radical. It’s just better.
How Ranked-Choice Voting Works
Here’s the part Tenney pretends is “too confusing”, maybe for her but not for voters:
You mark the ballot for candidates in order of your preference – first, second, third, and so on.
If a candidate gets over 50% of the first-choice votes they win.
If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.
Voters who picked that person as their first choice, get their vote transferred to their second choice.
This keeps going until someone gets over 50%.
That’s it. No smoke. No mirrors. Not confusing. No chaos. It is just a system to reflect what voters want.
Which, of course, is why Claudia Tenney hates it.
How Can Choice Be Bad?
According to Claudia Tenney, Ranked-Choice Voting is chaos. Literal anarchy. Dogs and cats living together. Or, as she phrased it in a press release defending her so-called “One Choice, One Vote Act,” Ranked-Choice Voting “causes chaos and confusion…distorted outcomes.“
Translation: “Chaos and confusion” = “I didn’t win.” “Distorted outcomes” = “Voters didn’t do what I wanted.”
Tenney’s argument is simple: If the system doesn’t deliver the result she and the Republicans like, it must be broken.
People Like Ranked-Choice Voting
Ranked-choice voting lets voters rank candidates in order of preference—so if your first pick doesn’t make it, your vote isn’t wasted. It rolls over to your next choice. It’s like democracy with a safety net.
Here’s why real voters—not just lifelong politicians like Tenney—support it:
Candidates need majority support, not just the largest slice of a fractured vote.
- Candidates need 50% or more to win. No more plurality winners like Tenney, who gets re-elected with less than 50% of the vote.
It eliminates the “spoiler effect”—third-party candidates don’t ruin races.
New voices can run without fear of vote-splitting.
Negative campaigning takes a hit—trash your opponents and lose their supporters’ second-choice votes.
Saves money by avoiding expensive runoffs and second-round elections.
Lowers the barrier to entry for women and candidates of color.
Candidates who win majorities in primaries perform better in general elections.
Funny. Tenney is co-chair of the House Election Integrity Caucus—but she opposes Ranked-Choice Voting, a system that strengthens election integrity. Maybe that’s because absolute integrity threatens her re-election chances.
Who’s Using Ranked-Choice Voting?
Ranked-choice voting is already the law in Maine and Alaska. It was how Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, held her seat in 2022—despite a Trump-backed challenger nipping at her heels.
That’s why Tenney and the MAGA crowd are terrified of Ranked-Choice Voting. When voters have real choices, extremists like Tenney don’t do so well.
Because when democracy opens the door to majority rule, the grifters, grandstanders, and grievance peddlers get pushed to the back of the line.
Ranked-Choice Voting Is Used In:
- Heisman Trophy (College Football)
- National Basketball Association, Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, and Other Honors
- National Hockey League, Awards (Hart Trophy, Norris Trophy, etc.)
- Major League Baseball, Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Awards
- Formula 1 Driver of the Day / Season Awards
- Academy Awards (Oscars) – Best Picture
- Hugo Awards – Science fiction & fantasy literature
- Pulitzer Prizes
- American Bar Association
- American Political Science Association
- League of Women Voters
- Sierra Club – Board elections
- Democratic and Republican party caucuses (some states use RCV to allocate delegates)
- Reddit, Discord, and other online forums for community decisions.
- Open-source software governance
- Many universities for faculty committees, alumni boards, and elections for trustees.
- The “Match” for medical and dental students applying for residency programs.
Why Are Tenney and Republicans Against Ranked-Choice Voting?
Simple. Ranked-choice voting makes it harder to rig elections in favor of party extremists—and easier for moderates and independents to win. That’s a problem if your political career is built on sneaking through low-turnout primaries and riding partisan tailwinds – like Tenney.
Tenney thrives in base-driven environments where winning just 46.5% of the vote is enough to land a seat in Congress. Case in point: her 2016 victory in NY-22. She didn’t win a majority—she won a three-way race with a plurality, beating Democrat Kim Myers and independent Martin Babinec. In 2020, she barely scraped by against Democrat Anthony Brindisi—by just 109 votes, with a third candidate splitting Brindisi’s vote. In both elections, a ranked-choice system would’ve changed the outcome.
It turns out that when you give people more choices, they don’t always choose the loudest voice in the room.
So it’s no surprise that Tenney is all-in on banning Ranked-Choice Voting nationwide. She’s not acting alone. This is part of the GOP’s larger effort to limit access, reduce turnout, and lock in structural advantages—whether it’s through the SAVE Act, “The One Choice, One Vote” Act, gerrymandering, or good old-fashioned disinformation.
Ranked-choice voting threatens the Republican voter suppression strategy.
Final Thought
If Claudia Tenney truly believed in democracy, she’d trust voters. She’d want them to have more choices, not fewer. Instead, she’s pushing her One Choice, One Vote Act—a bill designed to limit options and preserve a system where Republicans can win without majority support.
Like the SAVE Act, the One Choice, One Vote Act has nothing to do with election integrity. It’s about fear—fear of the voters and fear of what happens when the electorate gets a say.
Because when you’re terrified of the voters, the last thing you want is to give people more choice.