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 without RCV, if no candidate has a majority of the votes after the first primary or election, then 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 in a primary or on 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. Additional election cost has been the motivation for the adoption of RCV in places like San Francisco (replacing runoffs) and Minneapolis (replacing primaries).

In our current divisive times, RCV could redirect the focus on negative campaigning and steer the focus back to platforms and each candidate's qualifications for implementing those platforms. With RCV, candidates do best when they reach out positively to as many voters as possible, including those supporting their opponents. A Rutgers University poll of voters in 7 cities with RCV found that voters report friendlier campaigns and that RCV had majority support in all the cities using it. Analysis of this poll, and additional reports on the impact of RCV on civility in elections, are available from FairVote.

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, RCV helps make elections fairer and more reflective in every district. RCV 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 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.

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 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors elections demonstrate how RCV yields a majority or, at least, strong plurality winners in such elections.

Similarly, in the 2013 Mayoral contest in Minneapolis, with 35 candidates, Betsy Hodges received 36% of the first choice votes, followed by 61% 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 second. 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 2021, 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.