In his Feb. 10 commentary entitled "Ranked-choice voting fails to deliver on its promises," Jared Polik argued that ranked-choice voting (RCV) does not always produce a "majority winner" of ballots cast, because some ballots are "exhausted" when enough voters don't rank all the candidates. He is correct.
However, he is wrong to blame RCV for this. The voters who choose not to rank all the candidates do so knowing their ballots might get exhausted. If I'm chopping onions and I cut myself, would I blame the knife? No. Of course not. That would be absurd. The knife is a tool, and RCV is a tool that gives voters the opportunity to more effectively make their voices heard without "throwing their vote away" on independent or third-party candidates. If some voters choose not to use this tool, that's fine. But it is unfair to use that as an excuse for depriving other voters of the opportunity.
Karrsen Brannon-Young
Anchorage
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