Rank Choice Voting

How Rank Choice Voting Ballot Works

A Ballot With More Voter Choices and Lower Election Costs

Where a majority is required to win, rank choice voting eliminates the cost in time and money of holding a separate runoff election when no candidate gets that majority. The second and lower choices are an instant runoff election.

Where only a plurality is required to win, it makes elections by majority vote possible. These are reflective of a greater portion of the voters, and avoid the situation where most people voted for the candidates that lost.

Ranking candidates makes it possible for voters who are undecided between (a) their first preference that has a lower chance to win and (b) their second preference with a higher chance to win. They can vote for their first preference, but if that one cannot win, they can help their second choice candidate win vote.

Let's say someone from the Green (or Libertarian) Party is running whose policies you really like, but whom you know is not going to win. With rank choice voting you will be able to vote for the green party and cast a second rank vote for the Democratic (Republican) party because you don't want any part in helping those pesky Republicans (Democrats) to win.

Rank choice voting also encourages candidates to appeal to some of their opponents' supporters as 2nd, or lower choice, in case they do not win as a first choice. This makes candidate to appeal to a broader base, instead of taking more extreme positions to please a minority of supporters to win by a plurality.

The candidates with the broadest appeal, not the most liked by a minority, are the ones that win as a second, third or lower choice, with a majority. And that is what is most representative of the largest number of people. Not someone who wins by having the most votes, but not a majority.

This implies that, when there is no majority candidate winner on the first choice, most voters make the political compromise, such as between left or right candidates, by picking a moderate as a second choice. Currently, that compromise is usually made at the level of the laws voted on in the legislatures. Rank choice voting makes that compromise an option for the voters choosing candidates.

In essence, rank choice voting lowers election costs and gives voters more choices. In business more product and price choices results in more competition and produces better results for consumers. In politics, more voting choices produces better results for voters.

Adoption of Rank Choice Voting

As of June, 2021, rank choice voting has already been used in the state of Maine for all state and federal elections, and Alaska will be using it starting in November of 2022, also for all state and federal elections. Nineteen cities in various states have been using it, and 33 more cities have already approved it for their next election. And outside the US, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Malta, Northern Ireland and Scotland are also using rank choice voting.

Rank choice voting is also used for the internal party officer elections of 10 state Democratic and Republican parties and many state Libertarian Parties.