House election committee hears testimony warning ranked‑choice voting could complicate Michigan elections

The Michigan House Committee on Election Integrity on Oct. 26 heard testimony from Jason Snead and Trent England of the Honest Elections Project raising procedural and equity concerns about ranked‑choice voting (RCV) and how a proposed Michigan ballot measure would interact with the state's election systems.

Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told the committee RCV “really does fundamentally jeopardize free and fair elections, particularly when it comes to voter confidence in the election system and to the transparency and accountability that voters expect.” He explained the mechanics of ranking multiple candidates and described ballot exhaustion — when a voter’s ranked choices are all eliminated and that ballot is removed from later rounds of tabulation.

The witnesses framed their testimony around several recurring themes: administration complexity, delayed results, recount and audit difficulty, increased costs for voter education and equipment, and disparate impacts on some voter groups. "It is extraordinarily…