MILWAUKEE, WI — Bill Berrien, a Navy SEAL veteran and CEO of a Wisconsin manufacturing firm, is openly considering a run for governor in 2026. But his recent praise for ranked choice voting—a scheme long championed by the left—has conservatives asking serious questions about where he stands.
“We all recognize the lack of constituent accountability Congress faces due to our electoral process,” referring to a letter signed in opposition to banning ranked choice voting (RCV) in Wisconsin signed by Berrien earlier last year.
To election integrity advocates, Berrien’s support of RCV signals anything but a move forward.
A Trojan Horse for the Left
Despite the rhetoric, RCV has consistently been exposed as a confusing, unrepresentative system that undermines clear electoral outcomes. RCV “disconnects elections from issues and allows candidates with marginal support to win,” according to the Heritage Foundation. Instead of voting for one candidate, voters must rank several—even those they strongly oppose. The result? A convoluted tabulation process that can lead to “winners” who were never the top choice of a majority of voters.
In fact, data shows that in several jurisdictions using ranked choice, like Maine and Oakland, CA, the candidate who received the most first-choice votes lost. A Heritage study found that in all four local elections it analyzed, “the winner received less than a majority of the total votes cast.”
Ballot Exhaustion and Voter Disenfranchisement
One major flaw in the system is ballot exhaustion—when a voter’s selections are all eliminated in early rounds and their ballot is tossed out of the final count. A 2015 study revealed that exhausted ballots are a serious issue, meaning the final “majority” is only among those whose ballots remained, not all who voted. (RELATED: Should Wisconsin Have So Many Elections?)
Even former Democratic Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to expand ranked choice voting in California, calling it “overly complicated and confusing” and warning it “deprives voters of genuinely informed choice.”
Gaming the System
Critics also point to the dangerous incentives ranked choice voting creates. Voters are pushed to game the system strategically—up-ranking weaker candidates to help defeat stronger opponents, a move that erodes genuine political debate and transparency.
In places like Australia and Maine, candidates with fewer first-place votes emerged victorious thanks to vote redistribution in later rounds. In one case, 14,000 ballots were tossed entirely because voters didn’t rank every candidate. (RELATED: Sen. Padilla, Dressed as Civilian, Detained After Disrupting Press Conference)
Berrien’s decision to publicly support ranked choice voting has raised eyebrows among Wisconsin conservatives already reeling from years of underwhelming GOP performance at the state level. While Berrien has launched a political action committee—Never Out of the Fight PAC—promising to bring Republican victories back to the Badger State, his embrace of a voting method favored by leftist “reformers” sends a mixed message.
At a time when Republicans are demanding electoral integrity and clarity, Berrien is aligning himself with a system that’s been called “a numbers gimmick” by election experts.
As other GOP names like U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Eric Hovde weigh their own 2026 bids, voters will have to decide if a candidate who supports a liberal voting scheme can really lead the conservative comeback.