The 2024 general elections are shaping up to be a banner year for ranked-choice voting (RCV). In November, voters in six states and Washington, D.C., will vote on ballot initiatives. Some are voting on whether to replace their current first-past-the-post voting systems with some form of a ranked-choice vote for state and federal elections, while some are voting on whether to ban or repeal ranked-choice voting systems.
In the last decade, efforts to switch from first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting to ranked-choice voting have gained steam as voters have become disappointed or disillusioned by the shortcomings they see in the FPTP systems most states use. RCV proponents argue that unlike FPTP, RCV prevents candidates from getting elected who don’t appeal to a majority of voters, prevents the “spoiler effect,” and prevents voters’ votes from being wasted if their preferred candidate doesn’t win. In contrast, opponents argue that RCV can be confusing to voters and can disenfranchise those who don’t remember to or don’t want to rank multiple candidates on their ballots.
Currently in the United States, voters in Maine, Alaska, and multiple cities across the country use some form of ranked-choice voting to elect candidates in all their public elections. On the other hand, several state governments have also voted to block their states from implementing RCV for elections. With so many jurisdictions voting on RCV this year, it’s worth looking into how the system works, how it’s different from FPTP, how it’s played out in certain recent elections, and how RCV appears on ballots this year.
What Ranked-Choice Voting Is
While ranked-choice voting can refer to several different types of voting systems, in the United States, it generally refers to instant-runoff voting. In instant-runoff voting, voters rank the candidates for each race in order of preference (e.g., Candidate A is ranked first, Candidate B second, Candidate C third, etc.) and then submit their ballots. When the ballots are being counted, the first choice votes for every candidate are tallied first. If one candidate wins a majority (50%+1 vote) of the first choice votes, they are elected.
If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, then an instant runoff vote is held. The candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and any voter who voted for that candidate as their first choice has the vote for their second choice counted instead. After the next round, if there’s still no majority winner, the next lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and their voters are distributed to the candidates who were ranked next on those ballots. This process continues until one candidate receives an overall majority of the vote and is elected.
Ranked-Choice Voting vs. First-Past-The-Post Voting
Ranked-choice voting differs significantly from first-past-the-post plurality voting, which is the most common form of voting used in the United States. In first-past-the-post voting, voters select one candidate to vote for in each race before submitting their ballots. When the ballots are being counted, the votes for each candidate are tallied and the candidate who wins the most votes is elected, regardless of whether they won an overall majority of the vote.
Supporters of FPTP voting argue that it’s easy to understand since voters only need to choose one candidate and that it elects the candidate that appeals to the most voters overall. Supporters of RCV, however, criticize FPTP because they feel it does not accurately reflect the voters’ true preferences. They argue that it allows candidates to get elected with only a plurality instead of a majority of votes, that it can lead to a spoiler effect where a third-party candidate takes away votes, and that it leads to wasted votes among voters who choose to vote for non-major-party candidates.
In contrast, they argue that RCV encourages candidates to be more moderate and appeal to a broader swathe of voters since they need to win a majority of the votes cast after all rounds have been completed. The RCV system also eliminates the spoiler effect and voters’ needs to vote for “the lesser evil” to prevent a candidate they don’t like from winning. This is because their votes for minor party candidates can be redistributed to their next choices should their preferred candidate be eliminated from the race.
Supporters of FPTP voting, in turn, argue that RCV can be confusing for voters to grasp and can depress voter turnout or participation due to them not understanding the system. They also say that the system can lead to voter disenfranchisement because not every voter will rank every candidate on the ballot. If a voter only ranks their first choice or ranks fewer candidates than the number of rounds needed to declare a winner, their ballots will be exhausted and will not be counted in the final round.
Where Ranked-Choice Voting Is Currently Used
As of February 2024, 45 cities, 3 counties, and 2 states (Maine and Alaska) use some form of ranked-choice voting to elect candidates in all their public elections, while voters in several Southern states and Hawai’i use RCV in specific circumstances. Furthermore, several state Democratic and Republican parties use RCV for certain primary elections and party conventions.
Maine voters voted 52.12% to 47.88% to adopt ranked-choice voting in 2016 and reaffirmed that vote 53.88% to 46.12% in 2018. In 2018, in Maine’s Second Congressional District race, Jared Golden (D) trailed with 132,013 votes (45.6%) to incumbent representative Bruce Poliquin (R) with 134,184 votes (46.3%) in the first round of tallying. Once the second round began and third- and fourth-place candidates Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar were eliminated, their votes were redistributed to Golden and Poliquin. In the second round, Golden won 142,440 votes to Poliquin’s 138,931 votes (50.62% to 49.38%) and was elected to Congress.
Alaska adopted an RCV voting system 50.55% to 49.45% in 2020. Before passing Ballot Measure 2, the state had separate Republican and Democratic-Independent-Libertarian primaries to nominate candidates and then a general election decided by a first-past-the-post vote. After passing the measure, the state began using an all-candidate primary where the 4 candidates with the highest votes advance to the general election and the general election is decided by RCV. In 2022, in the final round of RCV voting for their races, Mary Peltola (D) defeated Sarah Palin and Nick Begich (both R) in the special and general At-Large Congressional District elections and incumbent Lisa Murkowski (R) defeated Kelly Tshibaka (R) in the Senate election.
In contrast to Alaska and Maine, Massachusetts voters rejected a ballot initiative to implement ranked-choice voting in 2020, defeating Massachusetts Question 2 by 54.8% to 45.2%. Ten state governments have banned the use of RCV in their elections. Those ten states include Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky (where the state legislature overrode Governor Andy Beshear’s veto), Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Dakota.
Ranked-Choice Ballot Initiatives In 2024
This November, Colorado and Idaho voters will vote whether to implement an all-candidate primary where the top 4 vote-getters will advance to a November election decided by RCV, the same system that Alaska currently uses. Meanwhile, in Alaska, voters will vote on an initiative on whether to repeal the Top 4 RCV system and return to using partisan primaries and first-past-the-post general elections.
Nevada voters will vote on whether to adopt an all-candidate primary where the top 5 vote-getters will advance to a November election decided by RCV. Washington, D.C. voters will vote on whether to allow voters not registered with a political party to participate in primaries and allow voters to rank up to five candidates in general elections. In Oregon, voters will decide whether to implement ranked-choice voting for statewide and federal offices by 2028. Finally, in Missouri, voters will vote on an initiative that would ban the use of ranked-choice voting or all-candidate primaries in the state’s elections.
Final Thoughts
The momentum to replace first-past-the-post voting systems in U.S. states with alternative ranked-choice voting systems continues to gain steam, with four states and Washington, D.C. having ballot initiatives this November where voters can decide whether to implement or reject alternative voting systems for state and federal elections. On the other hand, attempts to repeal or ban the implementation of RCV are also being put to voters this November in Alaska and Missouri.
Whether these RCV measures pass or fail in each of these states, the 2024 election marks an important occasion for many voters across the country to decide how candidates will be chosen, elections will be run, and winners will be decided. If voters want to see democracy in action, the votes and results for these ballot initiatives certainly show it.
