States that’ve used Ranked Choice Voting, what are your thoughts/perspectives on doing it?
Posted by GermSlayer1986@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 86 comments
I was looking at
https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV)#Where_is_RCV_used
and was wondering how those who have voted with it thought about the process. The map says Alaska and Maine have the full system, while other states have some municipalities with it. Just would like some perspectives.
Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit
Alaska just misses repealing theirs. 664 votes short. They’ll try again and might eventually pull it down.
It’s a terrible system where nobody ever gets what they want and change from status quo is nearly impossible. Worst case it gets paired with open primaries too.
I’m absolutely 100% opposed. This is what primaries are for.
Entropy907@reddit
Yeah we still ended up with Nick “Bootlicker” Begich from Florida as our Rep even with RCV.
anemone_within@reddit
Primaries perpetuate a two party system, and reduce choice.
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
The reality that a lot of progressives don't want to accept is that the vast majority of people don't want significant change, and want the status quo.
You're not losing because an artificial system is keeping you down - you're losing because people don't agree with you.
Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit
I don’t understand this in context. Progressives tend to prefer ranked choice voting and have arguably been the establishment status quo for at least 2008 if not most of the last century.
Can you break this down more?
ketamineburner@reddit
My state has it and I don't like it.
HurtsCauseItMatters@reddit
As an Election official, I'm here to do what the local jurisdiction wants. Here's my concern though.... elections are complicated now. LOTS of jurisdictions are losing staff, struggling with replacement level hiring, don't have the funds to attract full time workers at levels people are willing to work for and the average age of most of these workers is over 50 and they're female. I'm close to that demographic, but not quite.
Here's the problem. While I haven't done RCV from an election official perspective, the folks I've discussed it with have relayed that its pretty complicated. And when most jurisdictions are already outsourcing all of the technology work to put on elections, adding something like this to the conversation, especially if it were done on a wide spread level would guarantee mistakes and errors.
And that's not even taking into consideration if the process for the old ladies who work on election day would get more complicated. They struggle enough as it is.
My issues basically is passing the cost and the complication of RCV to vendors on a wide spread basis which is what will happen if this happens .... terrifies the fuck out of me.
And then .... there's the issue with the voters.
-Boston-Terrier-@reddit
None of my elections use RCV but, overall, I oppose it.
I just think you should purposefully vote for (or against) specific candidates.
WinterRevolutionary6@reddit
Quick question, what do you think ranked choice voting is? You literally do choose who you want and removes the “well if I vote for who I really want, it just splits my larger political party in half so I guess I’ll vote for their chosen guy” dilemma.
-Boston-Terrier-@reddit
This is clearly the start of a good faith discussion ….
RCV is a way to choose a candidate where voters rank each of them in order of who they want to be in office. Maybe more germane to this thread though is it’s a way of choosing a candidate where progressives feel they’ll stand a better chance of winning elections.
I think voters should get behind a specific candidate and if that candidate loses the election then they should accept more people voted for another candidate. I think it’s a bad idea to change longstanding democratic traditions to attempt to stack the deck in your “team’s” favor and I see no actual advantage other than you think it will stack the deck in your “team’s favor”.
WinterRevolutionary6@reddit
I think that RCV actually allows people to vote for who they want in office rather than who their party decided should run. I think that we as voters should take back the power to choose who represents us by instating RCV.
RCV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than being forced to pick just one. If a candidate gets more than 50% of first-choice votes, they win outright. If no one gets a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those votes are redistributed to their voters’ next choices. This process continues until one candidate has a majority.
This would allow someone to vote 1. Kanye 2. Trump 3. Biden in the 2020 elections. They really want Kanye for whatever reason but when he inevitably isn’t #1, their vote now goes to trump, their second choice candidate.
Try not to think about what a political party feels they’ll have more power in but actually how the system operates generally.
-Boston-Terrier-@reddit
Telling me to just ignore the only reason progressives want to completely uproot our elections and replace it with something else is because they think they'll fair better with it is laughable.
But you still can vote for who you want. You've never had to settle for Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.
WinterRevolutionary6@reddit
I’m not saying to ignore that, but the way you’re framing it makes me feel like this is an emotional response to how you feel it will change the political structure. Your definition didn’t actually explain how it works, which made me think you’ve just read some op-eds without actually understanding the mechanics.
-Boston-Terrier-@reddit
Just stop.
I most certainly did explain how it works. I then called you out on the only reason you think its a better system is that you think you'll stand a better chance of getting AOC or Bernie elected POTUS. Yours is the emotional response here.
QuietObserver75@reddit
We have it for primaries here in NYC and I think overall it's good.
TheCloudForest@reddit
My only complaint is that combining ranked-choice with very lax postal/absentee voting laws creates a system where the wait for the final result can seem interminable, creating suspicion among less-informed citizens that the whole thing is just bullshit. I think it needs to be one or the other.
10tonheadofwetsand@reddit
My local elections in Arlington, Virginia have it.
In all honesty, I support ranked choice voting as a concept, but I absolutely understand how and why it can cause confusion for lower propensity voters. We need better education campaigns on what the ballot looks like and how to fill it out.
I would consider myself a highly educated, highly motivated voter, and I work in politics… And it still takes me a minute to pause, reread the directions, and ensure I am filling out the matrix correctly.
I think a better system would be to just make it a series of questions, like:
1) select your preferred candidate for such and such office
2) now select your second-most preferred candidate…
3) now select your third…
So on and so forth.
angrysquirrel777@reddit
Wait why isn't it just laid out like that? How else could it even look?
10tonheadofwetsand@reddit
Ours is like a grid/matrix with candidates on one axis and 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice on the other axis, and you mark inside the grid
hella_cious@reddit
Jesus that’s twrrible
GB10031@reddit
Vote for the one candidate you like and keep it moving (winner take all) is the better way to vote - the normal way that we had before this rank choice nonsense
10tonheadofwetsand@reddit
Why is it bad to express preferences? That way we aren’t necessarily stuck in a choice between two evils, which most Americans feel we are every election.
This is basically just run off elections but instantaneous, anyway...
GB10031@reddit
We need a broader range of parties - not far right party and center right party
Ranked choice doesn't change that
Especially here in New York where we only have one party - so it's Democrat owned by the landlords 1, vs Democrat owned by the landlords 2, vs Democrat owned by the landlords 3, vs DSA Democrat whos super radical on Gaza Strip and LGBTQ rights... but is owned by the landlords on housing & rent related issues
That's not much of a 'choice'
It is pretty rank
I'd rather have a far left party, a labor party, a social democratic party, a center left party, a right wing party and a far right party - and have winner-take-all elections for the one of them that I agree with enough to vote for
Finally, having to do math when you vote de facto disenfranchises a LOT of voters (a lot more people than you think were failed by the school system and really aren't good at math or reading)
Better to vote the normal way (pick the one you like and winner-take-all) and to have an actual choice on election day instead of "pick the landlord controlled Democratic Party hack of your choice - and rank the hacks 1 through 5"
Crafty_Clarinetist@reddit
What?
Winner take all is not a system that encourages more parties. In fact, it discourages voting for 3rd party candidates. For example, take a hypothetical simplified state in which 40% of the population is pure far-right, 31% of the population is pure far-left and the remaining 29% is center-left. If you have 3 candidates, a far-right candidate, a center-left candidate, and a far-left candidate, and everyone voted for the candidate most closely aligned with their views, the far-right candidate wins, despite that candidate being 60% of the populations' least favorite candidate. This encourages those that would vote for the center-left candidate to instead vote for the far-left candidate because they don't want the far-right candidate to win. That's how fptp winner-take-all encourages a 2 party system.
Just because you'd rather have a multi-party fptp election doesn't mean that ranked choice is bad.
Also, what math do you have to do with a ranked choice ballot? There's literally no math, it's just rank the candidates in the order that you'd prefer them (and you don't even have to rank all the candidates).
10tonheadofwetsand@reddit
Lol this is such an incoherent response. Has FPTP given us a broader range of parties?
Gooble211@reddit
A big problem with RCV is that in practice it tends to favor candidates that very few people want.
SkyWriter1980@reddit
Have in Minneapolis. It did not deliver what was promised, it honestly sucks.
LightningVole@reddit
I disagree. I think it has worked well. ISome folks further to the left of me are unhappy with the results of recent mayoral elections, but I think they need to think harder about why their candidates lacked broad appeal.
SkyWriter1980@reddit
I’m just saying that studies have shown people tend to be more disappointed with the outcome than regular with regular voting.
sokonek04@reddit
That is mostly linked to this false idea that the only thing keeping leftists out of office is the evil two party system. And of course everyone who is beholden to the two party system will break out and vote for the enlightened leftist if only the “evil system” would allow them.
Then they get smacked in the face with the simple fact that leftists are not anywhere close to as popular as they think they are.
SkyWriter1980@reddit
⬆️ true
beenoc@reddit
What studies are those? The ones I can find seem to generally indicate that single-choice voting is more popular among people who have never had ranked-choice, but once someone has actually used RCV and seen the process and outcome they prefer it (AKA "it's new and different so I don't like it" which then gets overridden by a positive experience.)
SkyWriter1980@reddit
It’s a measure of outcomes, not immediate or anticipated satisfaction. I believe Paulson is the author.
CuppaJoe11@reddit
What… what were you expecting? Unless it was implemented badly then it should have delivered fine. Was it just the person you voted for didn’t win?
SkyWriter1980@reddit
lol no
glittervector@reddit
Can you explain what the unexpected problem was? I’ve never been anywhere with ranked voting and I’ve only ever heard good things. It would be interesting to hear about potential problems
norecordofwrong@reddit
We have it for state positions in Maine. I think people are mostly happy with it. It was done basically to prevent LePage from being governor. He’s not so mission accomplished (although it was term limits that actually did him in). Now it’s just everyone bitching about Mills instead of LePage.
GB10031@reddit
It makes voting and vote counting way more difficult than it needs to be - not everybody is good at math!
Also...it doesn't solve the problem
The problem here in New York City is that we're a one party city - we only have one party - the Democrats - they always run unopposed and having to "rank" several mediocre pro landlord Democrats is just one party rule with extra steps
What we really need is more than one party - we really need a socialist or labor party - rank voting doesn't solve that problem
Also, if we had that party, I realy want winner take all elections so if they win they win decisively
witchy12@reddit
I feel like ranked choice should be in every state.
JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit
Never heard about STAR voting then have you?
syncopatedchild@reddit
If people are as confused by RCV as this thread has indicated, how are you going to explain STAR to the general public?
Arleare13@reddit
Our only significant use of it so far was NYC's mayoral primary, and that still resulted in Mayor Adams, so I don't think I yet have enough of a sample size to have a strong opinion. Maybe after this next mayoral primary.
OsvuldMandius@reddit
I don't live in a ranked choice jurisdiction, so don't have the first-hand experience with it you do. But I have been a skeptic of it ever since it became internet-popular.
Are you concerned that your expectations might be different than what RCV can actually deliver? That question has always been the root of my skepticism. I see a lot of people with strong progressive leanings who seem sure that voting systems are why their candidates aren't the winning candidates, and I suspect that the issue is really that only about 15-20% of the electorate is actually "progressive"...whatever the hell that might happen to mean today.
Arleare13@reddit
I don't really have expectations for it. It reduces the effect of "spoiler" candidates, but how much that'd actually change results, I have no idea. The problem is that it doesn't just change outcomes, it changes how people vote, so there really isn't a good way to know what would have happened if the vote had instead been first-past-the-post short of a level of "how would you have voted if" exit polling that I don't think happened last election.
Last election I was really hoping for Kathryn Garcia, and I'm still disappointed with who we got stuck with instead, but I have no idea whether ranked-choice played a role in that. "Who would you have voted for if you could pick only one candidate" is a counterfactual that we just didn't have and don't know the answer to.
The upcoming NYC mayoral primary should be an interesting test case for that. Right now Cuomo has a major polling lead, with the most progressive candidate (Mamdani) in second, but pretty far behind. And the rest of the viable candidates are also progressive, but less so than Mamdani (he's DSA, they're more mainstream progressive Democrats). So it's a non-progressive Democrat with a lot of baggage, versus a collection of progressive Democrats. Again, I have no idea how ranked-choice will affect that, but it'll be interesting to see.
OsvuldMandius@reddit
Thanks for the insights. My guess would be that RCV encourages a large field of more fringe candidates, whose followers list the less fringe "mainstream" candidate as their 2nd choice....and then a whole bunch of people are frustrated that their never-had-a-chance in the first place candidate didn't win.
Now, the interesting thing here is that political polarization in America is such that who the two "mainstream alternatives" are depends on where you live. If you live in New York or Seattle (like I do), the "mainstream alternatives" are a center-left Democrat and a progressive candidate who hasn't said anything too embarrassing. If you live in rural Indiana like my more distant family, the "mainstream alternatives" are a center-right Republican and a hardcore Trumper.
I suspect the problem isn't the voting system itself. It's the fact that are existing political ideologies have done a terrible job of aligning themselves into parties. Basically...our politician class sucks. Anyhoo...good luck to ya, New Yorker.
Blue387@reddit
Don't blame me I ranked Garcia first and didn't rank Eric Adams at all on my ballot
Arleare13@reddit
Same here. I really wish she was running again.
NYC_DILF@reddit
3 Words: Mayor Eric Adams.
7yearlurkernowposter@reddit
We use approval voting for local elections which is similar but cheaper.
Every election is now two rounds where the two most popular candidates advance to a traditional run-off.
I find it to be a waste of time personally and assume there will be an attempt to repeal it in the next decade.
AlienDelarge@reddit
Thus far in my local election, it seems to have made things worse. I voted against it for the state.
Meilingcrusader@reddit
I live next door to Maine and have strong thoughts. I don't like it at all. I think it has an effect of funneling all political representation to the middle, which makes achieving serious change basically impossible. Look at France, everyone hates Macron but he keeps getting reelected because the left hates him less than they hate the right and the right hates him less than they hate the left. I understand the frustration with first past the post, but runoff voting, whether later or instantaneous, isn't a solution to its problems.
OpelSmith@reddit
Macron is not elected via ranked choice voting
Meilingcrusader@reddit
He is elected via runoff. RCV is just instant runoff
OpelSmith@reddit
Not really, because it's an entirely new brief campaign between 2 selected people
Meilingcrusader@reddit
It's the same concept. If you made French runoffs instant, it wouldn't change much
CuppaJoe11@reddit
Wouldent you constantly rather someone you hate less then the opposition then either someone you hate a ton or someone you love? I would much rather down the middle politics in this day and age lmao.
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
You'd think so, but the truth is that a lot of people want to gamble for their specific favorite candidate.
They want their pet ideologies or nothing, and consider anything less than total victory to be dogshit.
It's that way for MAGAs, and it's that way for Bernie Bros.
They're perfectly happy to perpetuate a system that gives their candidate a higher chance to win, even if that means playing demographic roulette hoping that they can override the will of everybody else and force their favorite candidate down all of our throats.
im-on-my-ninth-life@reddit
The issue is that for administrative offices there needs to be a way to vote for the office to be abolished. For things like mayor/council maybe they need to have someone there, but not necessarily everything else.
CuppaJoe11@reddit
But that has nothing to do with ranked choice voting/FPTP voting.
im-on-my-ninth-life@reddit
Yes it does? Usually "abolish" (or "None of the above", used in Nevada) is not offered as an option on a RCV ballot. Whereas if a score/range ballot is used, if the voters disapprove of all candidates, then no candidate has enough votes to win and the office gets abolished that way. This is because score/range ballots allow both for and against votes. (where a candidate's "score" is + the number of For votes and - the number of Against votes, which means if they have a negative number then there are more people that disapprove than approve)
Meilingcrusader@reddit
Honestly I think the left and right both have some decent ideas for substantial change to the system, so I'd rather have either of them in charge than the middle which doesn't want to implement any change
GreatRecipeCollctr29@reddit
It was a bad idea in voting a mayor, vice mayor in Oakland,CA. They are still using it until today which they used it on 2018. I wasn't thrilled how they implemented it.
angrysquirrel777@reddit
Why is that?
GreatRecipeCollctr29@reddit
They used ranked voting to give a chance for potential candidates to win elections. It is not technically really a majority per se but more on wgat policies and their motives to win the city wide positions. Mayor and vice mayor are implemented on a eanking system while positions are elected based on the majority or by unbiased appointment like sheriff, police chief and other city-wide agencies.
Roadshell@reddit
Live in a city that uses it. IDK, I think it works better in theory than practice. It's hard enough to get people to show up and vote when the system is simple and the more you complicate it the more discouraged they get. You wouldn't think that a ranked choice would be "complicated" but half the population doesn't even know we use it and when you try to explain it to them their eyes glaze over in frustration. Then when and if the candidate wins of the fourth or fifth ballot it feels anti-climactic and deflating.
im-on-my-ninth-life@reddit
Is this part actually true? It's not like when the election is close the winning candidate gets less power
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
He means it's anti-climactic and deflating because the staunch ideologues didn't get the cult of personality that they psyched themselves up for.
Instead, they got somebody they were just alright with.
Just like everybody else.
But they really wanted their super special dear leader, and so they think the system sucks because they weren't able to railroad an extreme candidate over everybody else.
19thcenturypeasant@reddit
I live in Alaska. I like ranked choice voting better than first past the post, but would prefer we switch to STAR voting, which was used for small local elections in one of the places I used to live. Unfortunately, a bunch of Alaskans now don't like ranked choice voting, and I don’t think they'll be particularly open to trying/learning another system in the near future.
Spud8000@reddit
i personally feel it is unconstitutional
SandpaperSlater@reddit
I live in Michigan, which doesn't have it, but am part of a volunteer initiative to get it on the ballot.
Michiganders, check out RankMiVote.org to learn more how you can be involved!
RogueCoon@reddit
This thread isn't really selling me on changing our voting systems
mrlolloran@reddit
We voted it down in Mass when the referendum came around last.
I think read something about how we used to have it in the past and repealed it but I could be confusing us with another state
Lascivious_Luster@reddit
At so.e point the bad implementations and the mistakes are no longer seen as mistakes or overnights. They become intentional and part of bad faith arguments.
tenehemia@reddit
We used it here in Portland for the first time this past election and I thought it was great. Unfortunately the state-wide ranked choice voting ballot measure was defeated. The opponents of it managed to get people against it firstly by saying essentially that it's a "Portland thing" which is a sure fire way to get people from Greater Oregon to vote against anything. They pointed to the huge number of candidates running for Mayor and City Council positions and claimed it was too confusing for voters. Of course, the reason we had so many City Council candidates is that we completely changed the Council system in 2024 which meant more positions and that there was an election for every position. And the Mayoral election wasn't really any more crowded than usual.
In the end, the Mayoral election wasn't decided by ranked choice (that is to say that if we weren't using it, the same person would have won). Of the twelve Council positions, I recall that a couple were shifted by ranked choice. So the system seems to work just fine. As to "it's too confusing", that's a self-indictment if I've ever heard one. It's not a confusing system to anyone willing to spend five minutes reading about how it works and if people choose to not participate by only voting for their 1st choice, they can do that.
Portland politics in general are pretty different from how most people would describe the American political system. It's not a "red vs blue" fight here. Of the twelve city councilors elected, there are zero conservatives and several who are very progressive to the point where they're clearly further to the left of the Democratic party. Both the Mayoral and City Council positions are non-Partisan (meaning candidates do not run as members of a political party). The most conservative any candidate with an even remotely decent showing in the election gets is if they are endorsed by the Portland Police Bureau, but even their politics would probably be deemed as "dangerously liberal" by the Republican party.
That being the case, I think ranked choice worked better here than it would in most places in the country (to say nothing of nationwide ranked choice voting for President). Switching to ranked choice for all elections in the country would be a good thing because it establishes the system necessary for smaller parties to have any chance, but it does not itself undo to the incredibly divided and thoroughly tribal attitude that most people in the country have towards elections and political parties in general. Implementing ranked choice everywhere is smartly putting the horse before the cart, however the cart in question is still a long way off.
InfidelZombie@reddit
I'm in OR and maybe it was just the way it was implemented for the last ballot, but I think it was a bad idea. It took me as long to fill out the ranked-choice item as all the others combined. The instructions were to choose your top X (I think it was 5-10) in order, which requires a lot of effort to understand the 20 candidates and pick X in order.
I'm a civic duty person so I diligently complied, but I bet most people just gave up and marked only their first choice.
Dachd43@reddit
That's what gave us Eric Adams. 0/10
Sinrus@reddit
We don't have it statewide, but it's used for local elections in my city. I think it's great. If someone doesn't want to do any research on the candidates I think it might be a turn off for them (and good riddance anyway?), but it felt like I was incentivized to think more about all the different candidates. And even in the case where somebody just wants to pick one favorite, you can still do that with ranked-choice.
Appropriate-Food1757@reddit
It worked in Alaska
No-Lunch4249@reddit
I'm not in a state that uses it but since only Alaska and Maine use it statewide, I feel liberated to chime in anyway lol.
I'm not a fan. I think it can maybe have potential in places that are so dominated by a single party that the primary election is essentially the only race that matters (mainly thinking mayors races big cities on the coast as the sterotype)
cbrooks97@reddit
I would like to know how well hand recounts go in those states.
Konigwork@reddit
I love questions like this. All the top answers are “I haven’t used it but I want to!” And “our system sucks!”
terrible_idea_dude@reddit
extremists hate it, moderates love it
Swampy1741@reddit
It’s better than FPTP, but honestly I think every lower house should switch to proportional
CLM1919@reddit
Almost anything is better than FPTP. Any system has flaws because people will try to "beat the system" to get what they want and twist\spin results to their advantage. What democracy needs is a better (honest) informed electorate that is willing to out the work into it, not just cast a ballots (and we can't even 80% of Americans to do that consistently...but that's another issue)
Blue387@reddit
I have used it here in 2021. I ranked Kathryn Garcia first on my ballot and I proudly did not rank Eric Adams at all. I knew Adams would be an idiot as mayor after eight years of having him as borough president. Don't blame me for Adams as mayor.
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