Ranked-Choice Voting: A proven improvement to the way we vote
RCV lets you rank candidates in order of preference. Instead of settling for one, you can vote for candidates you really like. If none get more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is out, and those votes go to voters’ next choices. This continues like an instant runoff until someone wins a majority.
Benefits of Ranked-Choice Voting
- Reducing Polarization: RCV makes candidates appeal to a wider audience. Since they might need second- or third-choice votes, there’s less negative campaigning and more focus on real issues and solutions.
- Increasing Voter Turnout: With RCV, voters have more meaningful choices, which has led to higher engagement and turnout in states like Maine and cities like NYC. People are more likely to vote when they feel their vote counts and they don’t feel stuck choosing the lesser of two evils.
- Mitigating the Spoiler Effect: Currently, voting third-party can sometimes help the candidate you like least. RCV fixes this by letting your vote go to your next choice if your top pick is out.
- Enhancing Representation: RCV ensures elected officials have broader support. Candidates need to build coalitions and appeal to more voters, leading to more representative and responsive governance.
- Working Together: RCV helps representatives work together instead of just blocking each other to score political points. When candidates need to appeal to a wider range of voters, they’re more likely to find common ground and team up on policies that benefit everyone. This means popular policies are much more likely to happen.
- Read the full column from Denise Riley, Executive Director of Rank The Vote Ohio
Convoluted and confusing: Ranked-Choice Voting undermines election integrity
There are many different versions of ranked-choice elections. Generally, voters list candidates in their order of preference. If a candidate ends the first round of voting with a majority, more than 50% of the votes, they are named the winner. However, if no candidate has a majority of the votes, the candidate with the fewest amount is removed. Those who voted for the removed candidate would then have their ‘second choice’ vote counted. The election continues in this manner until one candidate gains a majority of the votes and is declared the winner.
Are you confused yet? If so, you are not alone. Not only is ranked-choice voting convoluted, it also has a host of issues. Some of these include:
- Decreased voter turnout in communities that have implemented ranked-choice voting;
- Increased time to calculate election results, as happened in the 2021 New York City mayor’s race that took 57 days to get precinct–level results;
- A confusing tabulation process, which increases risk of error, like the Oakland school board situation where the wrong person was certified as the winner. This also undermines voter confidence;
- Increased cost to taxpayers. One study found that jurisdictions utilizing ranked-choice voting “spend significantly more on elections overall”;
- Varying numbers of candidates - voters may have to rank 10-20 candidates, making it difficult for voters to be knowledgeable about the various candidates;
- Possibility of skewed election results - a person who comes in third in the first round of voting could end up getting elected in a later round;
- Not every vote counts due to ballot exhaustion.
- Read the full column from Sen. Theresa Gavarone
As Riverside considers charter amendment, meaningful conversations more important than ever
Earlier this year, a group of Riverside citizens came together to review the city’s charter, a formal process that occurs every five years. They discussed several potential changes to bring forward to the voters in our community, one of which was switching to a ranked choice voting style, where voters rank the candidates for mayor and city council in order of preference. When the votes are tabulated, the least popular candidates are eliminated in a series of instant runoffs until one candidate gets a clear majority (50% +1) and wins the election.
For non-partisan seats such as ours where there are no primary elections, the number of candidates can vary wildly from year to year. In races drawing a large number of candidates, popular candidates can fare poorly under the current plurality voting style. This can happen when voters must choose one from among several strong contenders, effectively splitting the vote. When voters are given the opportunity to rank the candidates, however, the voters can consolidate around the strong and popular candidates. This results in the candidate with the broadest appeal emerging as the winner. This process allows a natural consensus to emerge from competing voting blocs. In turn, this consensus provides a clear direction to council moving forward.
One of the strongest ways that citizens can communicate collectively to their local government is through elections. We may not have the luxury of weekly opinion polls to tell us what voters think about the latest road project or budget decision, but we do get a survey of the priorities of our constituents revealed in the policies of the winning candidate. A ranked vote can offer an even richer dataset, showing the preferences of the voters all the way down the line.