Ranked-Choice Voting in 2024

More thoughts, because of course there's more

(image: FairVote.org)

Just under a week now before Idaho decides whether to adopt Proposition 1, the ballot initiative to change most elections to non-partisan, top-four primaries, and ranked-choice voting for general elections. In recent weeks, I’ve heard bits about similar measures in other states, and I looked into them a bit to see how they compare to Idaho’s proposed election reforms. I also wrote at length about Idaho’s ballot initiative a few weeks ago, if you’d like more info on that specifically.

I won’t go into all the details here, because they won’t matter to almost anyone reading this. But I do want to share some interesting information and some conclusions I’ve drawn from this bit of research. I’m not going to include a bunch of links because this was pretty casual research, but if you find something interesting it should be pretty easy to find more info yourself.

Seven states and D.C. have something on the ballot related to enacting some kind of open primaries or ranked choice voting. Three of these are majority Republican (ID, MT, SD), three are Democratic (CO, OR, DC), and two are swing states (AZ, NV).

There are claims that Idaho’s Proposition 1 is a plot for Democrats to take over the state from conservatives. But the fact that there is such a variety of states close to making these same changes is pretty good evidence that this is not some liberal scheme. Colorado, a liberal-leaning state, and Nevada, a swing state, both plan to make election reforms extremely similar to Idaho’s.

There is also one state, Alaska, that has a ballot measure to repeal their voting system that was only enacted in 2020 and is very similar to Idaho’s proposed changes. This would change their system back to what it was before, which is similar to Idaho’s current system.

The places looking to make changes to either non-partisan primaries, ranked-choice general elections, or both (image: Michael Storm / Unsolicited Context)

The proposed change in Alaska is primarily due to backlash over the state having elected a Democrat for the U.S. House. Republicans cried foul, pointing to the fact that this is the first time a non-Republican has served in that office since 1973.

That last data point needs a lot of context though, since there has only been one individual (Don Young-R) serving in that position from 1973-2023. The last time Alaska actually elected any Democrat to U.S. congress was 2008, to the senate (Mark Begich). For the record, Alaska has become increasingly politically balanced since 2000; in 2020, about 53% of presidential votes cast there were for the Republican candidate.

There are two main features of non-partisan primaries paired with ranked-choice general elections: The first is to promote more moderate candidates who appeal to a broad range of voters, rather than just a certain base that might be very polarized. The second feature is to get more information about voter preferences. Both of these are accomplished when voters rank their choices for the general election.

There is also a common misconception about how a winner is chosen with ranked choice voting: Most voters are used to plurality voting, meaning that the top vote-getter wins no matter how many votes they get. RCV requires a majority of total votes to win, meaning greater than 50%. Thus, if the top vote-getter gets only 49% in the first round, they have not won — yet.

If no candidate earns a majority of first round votes, the last place candidate is eliminated, their votes are redistributed based on voters’ ranking, and this continues until a majority is reached. In this way, it is more democratic than plurality voting: more than half of voter have to have approved of the winner at some level for them to win. While it is possible for the final winner to be behind in early rounds, in practice the winner of the first round is almost always the one that wins in the end.

While this seems more complex than the simple plurality voting we’re all used to, and voters do report some initial confusion when these systems are put in place, people get used to it really fast. This is partly because once it’s in place, it is absolutely in politicians’ and the government’s best interest to make sure citizens know how to vote correctly. Once implemented, voter satisfaction with the system itself is typically very high and voter errors are minimal.

It’s also possible to expand this system to national elections in the future (i.e., presidential elections), and in that way we could finally break out of the two-party system we’ve been stuck in since basically the beginning of the United States. While that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t still have two major parties, we could at least end up with more than two realistic candidates for the general election, and the winner would be the most overall preferred candidate, rather than the “lesser of two evils” we usually find ourselves with. That’s just hypothetical of course, but it could happen if this continues becoming popular!

We can put some consensus into our politics, finally. (image: Getty)

That all sounds pretty good to me, but these election styles are not popular with everyone. As I mentioned above, non-partisan primaries and RCV promote moderate, broadly-appealing candidates. So naturally, a lot of the politicians this hinders are those that are more partisan, and perhaps draw votes from a base that have more intense views of certain issues. Idaho’s own Ammon Bundy, serial outlaw and would-be politician, is a good example of someone who would never want this kind of reform.

In Idaho, which is largely GOP-led, this has caused somewhat of a rift between traditional conservative Republicans and the new, Trump-style groups. Many traditional GOP like former governor Butch Otter favor these election reforms, while Trump-aligned Republicans like the Idaho GOP Chair Dorothy Moon oppose the changes.

Democrats are generally more approving of these election reforms (Republicans are about 50/50 nationwide), but the main reason there is more consensus is because Democrats don’t have as much major intra-party conflict that Republicans currently do. But it is true that Democrats who are further to the left and lean into hyper partisan tactics are more likely to oppose RCV.

Besides the far-left and far-right, there is another type of politician that is suspicious of these reforms: those currently in power. It’s really hard to convince someone in power to change the process they went through to obtain their position, because it clearly worked just fine for them. Among Democrats and Republicans, those already in office are hesitant to support a new system that they may not benefit as much from. This is why, in Idaho at least, a lot of retired Republicans support these changes.

The people that oppose these changes generally have something personal to lose. The people who support these changes might have something to gain, but they are also widely supported by people and groups that just want to enact well-researched, pro-voter improvements to the way we do things. Change isn’t always good, but this change, in Idaho, right now, feels to me like it has positive written all over it.

But some might still look at such a change and wonder, even if this change is not bad, why it’s even necessary. After all, our plurality voting has been working for us for a very long time. My reasoning for this is similar to what you might think when deciding to look for a better job after working in an okay position for years: Sure, it will take some effort. Sure, it would be easier to just stay the course. But if you go for it, take the plunge and work for something that you know will be better in the long run, you know things will be better for you in the days ahead. And besides, is this system really working that well when everyone complains about it all the time?

Please vote YES on Idaho’s Proposition 1. It really is good for all Idahoans.

(image: Idahoans for Open Primaries)

And if you want to look up more information on any of the places with these kinds of things on the ballot this year, here are the names for easy Googling:

• Arizona - Proposition 140

• Colorado - Initiative 310 (aka Proposition 131)

• D.C. - Initiative 83

• Idaho - Proposition 1

• Montana - CI-126 and CI-127

• Nevada - Question 3

• Oregon - Measure 117

• South Dakota - Constitutional Amendment H

• Alaska (to repeal) - Ballot Measure 2

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