HB205 would establish a majority-based runoff process in regular primary elections through contingency voting.
The House passed HB205 on February 17, 2023, by a vote of 38 to 36. We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill would for all intents and purposes enact a form of instant-runoff voting (IRV) or ranked-choice voting (RCV) in Utah statewide. Contingency voting (CV) is just another version of the various “alternative voting methods” under the complicated, multiple-round, and unconstitutional IRV/RCV system that weakens election integrity by allowing a candidate to potentially win without genuine support from a plurality of voters. The scheme’s ballot casting requirements cause voter disenfranchisement by undermining each citizen’s right to vote, and could deny them from being able to select the one and only candidate of their choice.