A time-honored American tradition of democracy is #voting. Although much of the technology has changed, votes are still structured and counted the same way: voters select one candidate on a ballot and the candidate with the most votes wins. This is known as plurality voting, and it’s being challenged by a different type of voting called Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) introduced in state electoral voting by Maine in 2016. When #RCV is implemented, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. When the votes are tallied, if no candidate earns more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the votes are applied to the second-choice candidate on those ballots. The main goal and benefit of the system is that the elected candidate would have secured the preference of more than half of the voters.

As of 2022, Alaska and Maine have implemented RCV for federal and/or state-level elections. Hawaii adopted, but not yet implemented RCV in federal special elections and special elections to fill vacancies on county councils. Another eight states contained jurisdictions that had implemented RCV at the local level. Another four states contained jurisdictions that had adopted, but not yet implemented RCV in local elections.

RCV ensures the elected candidate is one preferred by more than half the populace, gives greater accessibility to out-of-country voters such as military who cannot re-vote on short notice, and eliminates the issue of a third-party “spoiler” drawing valuable votes from majority party candidates.

Many support RCV because it discourages negative campaigning by encouraging candidates to appeal to their opponents’ voters as a second choice. RCVs spur candidates to focus on sharing visions for improvement and reaching out positively to voters, rather than focusing on disparaging an opponent. Other benefits include voters having more choices and the ability to vote more for a candidate than against a candidate.

Some believe that RCVs are not necessary and plurality elections are perfectly fine the way they are. A new election process can be difficult to teach to citizens who have used the same method for decades. It is also arguable that the current political climate is so #polarized that a ranked system would not do any good as voters are unwilling to cross party lines. In cases where only one candidate is preferred and chosen by the voter, would that ballot be disqualified? 

Should the U.S. adopt Rank-Choice Voting?