That was my first impression.

Yes!

Welcome to the real world. Ranked Choice voting has now produced a perverse result. The least popular candidate has been "elected".

Every voting system will do this, as the founders knew https://cic.nyu.edu/sites/default/fil... . That's why the picked the simplest system, "First Past The Pole".

Seems like a process designed to pick back up the votes lost to third party candidates that usually tend to bleed away Democrat votes. Election rigging if I ever saw it. Since it helps Democrats, it will survive court challenge.....unless we can show that it hurt a minority or illegal voter......Oh come on...I forgot...no one really cares about them minorities and illegals....the only thing important is helping Democrats take beck their rightful power.

That was kind of my thinking as well.

I am not opposed to this unusual form of voting. The candidates and constituents knew the rules before the election.

I prefer the run-off system to this. I don't consider a preference the same as a vote.

In my opinion any voting system that does not count an individual’s vote for, “none of the above” has a major flaw.

Mshupe. I’m sure that you’ve seen the quality of Oakland mayors that have been picked using this system.

Probably would not be considered if they knew how to fairly count the votes. If the ballot is all screwed up throw it out. If the machine doesn’t read the dot it is because it was not filled in , that equals no vote. Strict deadlines period .
Voter iD
No question about it , it is as racist as the pillsbury dough boy

I see your point but now we are dependent upon the computer and can you imagine how complex a hand recount would be if the computer goes down or gets it wrong?
Hell, they can't even handle a simple stupid system.

You get to choose who the 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc. is on your ballot. That is how they are allocated, by the individual voters choice.
Here is an image of the Maine ballot showing that you choose the ranking.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Kg8VJ...
(I hope that image works;^)

It does depend on the computer being programmed correctly to only re-allocate votes of those voters whose first choice is not one who got a lot of votes. That is not very difficult to program correctly.

(It’s worth noting that voters don’t have to rank every single choice on the ballot — they could still just choose one candidate and submit their ballot.)

Like all things political it will be misused. I think the people will do the opposite and only vote R/D in the future.
Besides, who says the alternative candidates approved whom their votes went to, we might see the opposite here too. alternative candidates joining the mainstream parties.
I'd be pissed as a libertarian if my votes went to a demoncrap because they were the second choice of the voters.

Convoluted? Sounds almost rational to me as long as the process is transparent and not misused.
This system would allow libertarian voters to have votes reallocated to conservative candidates instead of being "wasted." (This presumes that libertarians are more conservative than socialist.)
OTOH, it would also allow "Bernie" socialist votes to be reallocated to socialist Democrat candidates.
The article says the "ranked choice system was approved in 2016." I wonder who "approved" it: state legislators or voters?

But the result could instead be that more people vote their real first choice instead of choosing the lesser of 2 evils (Dem/GOP) and the third party candidates actually have a chance to get the votes they deserve.
Would you vote for an objectivist candidate as first choice and GOP as second choice if you knew it would eventually go to the GOP candidate in a close race?