Why choose ranked choice voting (RCV) as an election method?   Jurisdictions adopting RCV do so for several reasons, from saving money to increasing civility in campaigns.

In some jurisdictions, if no candidate has a majority of the votes after the first primary or election, a second election takes place in which only the two candidates with the most support in the first election run. Those candidates must campaign again - often in a very negative head-to-head race - and voters must return to the polls to vote again. Whether this runoff election occurs after a primary or Election Day, turnout often plummets in the second round.

With RCV, a jurisdiction can get the benefit of two rounds of voting in a single, more representative, higher-turnout election. That is why RCV is often called instant runoff voting (IRV). In this context, RCV can save the jurisdiction a lot of money - the entire cost of a second election - while helping promote majority support and civil campaigning. Reducing election costs was the motivation for the adoption of RCV in places like San Francisco (replacing runoffs) and Minneapolis (replacing primaries).

The current state of politics may be divisive, but it doesn’t have to be this way. RCV reduces incentives for negative campaigning and shifts the focus back to platforms and candidates’ qualifications. With RCV, candidates do best when they reach out positively to as many voters as possible, including those supporting their opponents. A 2021 study of debate terms in RCV and non-RCV mayoral elections concluded that candidates in RCV contests were more likely to substitute negative or neutral words with positive ones. Another study examined Alaska’s first RCV elections in 2022 and concluded that RCV promoted more accommodative campaigning. Analysis of this poll, and additional reports on the impact of RCV on civility in elections, are available from FairVote. Increasing civility in campaigns was one of the factors in Charlottesville, Virginia’s RCV adoption.

All states and all congressional elections currently use winner-take-all rules that often elevate district lines over voters. Legislatures elected by winner-take-all may lead to distortions in partisan representation, the entrenchment of incumbents in safe seats, regional polarization, and low representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. When combined with multi-winner districts electing at least three members, proportional RCV (PRCV) helps make elections fairer and more reflective in every district. PRCV ends the cycle of gerrymandering and creates competitive elections in which every vote counts.

Since 1941, Cambridge, MA, has elected its nine-member Council and six-member School Committee using PRCV, which it calls Proportional Representation (PR). As Cambridge’s voter information brochure notes, “Under PR, any group that numbers more than one-tenth of the voters may elect at least one member of the City Council.” Its ethnically diverse and geographically mixed population makes this form of RCV particularly attractive to the City of Cambridge. Portland, OR, which implemented PRCV in 2024, eliminated its commissioner form of government in favor of a 12-member city council with four, three-member districts in an effort to improve representation on the council. The 2024 election produced the city’s most diverse set of legislators.

The spoiler effect has long been a point of contention in close political contests, where a third candidate appears to have drawn first-choice votes away from one candidate in a closely contested race. RCV allows these voters’ full range of preferences to be reflected in the outcome. 

Also, in races with numerous candidates, the winning candidate frequently receives less than 50% of the vote. In such contests, the leading candidate may receive a weak plurality of the vote. Examples from Minneapolis, Minnesota’s 2023 elections demonstrate how RCV yields a majority or, at least, strong plurality winners in such elections.

2023 Ward 8 - Minneapolis, MN

Similarly, in the 2024 Mayoral contest in Portland, with 20 candidates, Keith Wilson received 34% of the first-choice votes, followed by 59% of the vote in the final round of tabulation.

Recent Gubernatorial elections in Maine, where strong independent candidates led to the election of governors without majority support (in one case less than 40%), contributed to Maine voters’ 2016 adoption of RCV for its statewide and General Assembly elections.

Jurisdictions with runoff elections must administer the sending and receiving of ballots multiple times: once for the first election and then again for the runoff election. International mail takes time, however, so the deployed military and overseas voters of these jurisdictions may not have time to receive, complete, and return a runoff ballot before the day of the election. This time crunch is why federal law requires at least 45 days between rounds of voting in federal elections. Still, many state and local runoff elections occur as little as one week after the first round, effectively disenfranchising overseas and military voters.

With RCV ballots, a military or overseas voter can vote in the first round and then rank their backup candidates. In the runoff, the ranked ballot counts for whichever candidate the overseas voter ranked highest. As of 2025, six states use RCV ballots to include military or overseas voters in runoff elections: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Also, Springfield, IL, has adopted ranked ballots for military and overseas voters.