#88 What is ranked choice voting?

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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

Imagine that we could make our democracy better.

We may not be able to improve the quality of our candidates, but we can try to improve the quality of our electoral system.

In the U.S., the vast majority of elections are plurality votes.

Plurality voting — also known as first-past-the-post voting — means that the candidate who wins the most votes wins the election.

Simple, right? But a growing number of states, cities, and countries are rejecting plurality voting in favor of a different voting system: ranked choice voting (RCV).

Under an RCV election system, voters rank their candidates in terms of preferences. (see below)

If none of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote, then the votes that went to the third-place candidate are distributed to the candidate that their voters picked as their second choice.

If there still isn’t a candidate with more than 50% of the vote, the process continues with third- and fourth-choices until a candidate has won a majority of the ranked votes.

The argument for ranked-choice voting is that a plurality vote — particularly in a two-party system — can lead to the election of politicians who don’t have the support of a majority of voters.

And because people feel like they only have two options in an election, they are less likely to support third-party candidates. Or they may feel like voting isn’t even worth it.

RCV can make voters feel like their votes actually matter.

Let’s use an example: Imagine there’s an election with the following results.

Candidate A wins 39% of the vote.
Candidate B wins 20% of the vote.
Candidate C wins 41% of the vote.

Under a plurality system, Candidate C wins.

However, you could criticize the election on the grounds that a candidate won despite the fact that 59% of the population voted for another candidate.

Or, you could try a ranked-choice system. Under this system, the 20% of voters who selected Candidate B would have their second-choice votes counted when Candidate B falls to third place.

So, imagine that:

• 80% of the people who picked Candidate B as their first-choice candidate had picked Candidate A as their second-choice candidate

• And only 20% of those voters picked candidate C as their second choice candidate

Candidate A would win the election, with 55% of the vote compared to 45% for Candidate C.

Even though Candidate C won the most first-place votes, the candidate-ranking system ensures that the ultimate winner is the candidate aligned with the preferences of a majority of voters.

RCV in the USA

A growing number of U.S. states and cities are rejecting plurality voting in favor of RCV. And a number of states will vote on the matter this November.

It’s not a new idea: The city of Ashtabula, Ohio, first used RCV over 100 years ago in a 1915 city council election.

Alaska and Maine are the two U.S. states that have replaced plurality voting with RCV in most major elections.

In both states, RCV was passed with voter referendums despite opposition from politicians in the state legislature.

RCV is allowed in some form in 14 U.S. states and is banned outright in 10 Republican-leaning states.

The ten states that have passed some sort of ban on RCV are: Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Voters in Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, and Montana will all have the chance to vote for or against RCV during the November 2024 election.

And Alaskan voters will be able to vote to repeal the state’s RCV law.

It will be interesting to see if RCV gets more media coverage as the election gets closer, with a growing number of Americans being given the opportunity to change their electoral system for the first time in their lives.

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Yours,
Dan