Frequently Asked Questions
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What is Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV)?
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Is Ranked-Choice Voting Better?
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Is RCV Fair to All Voters?
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What is Ballot Exhaustion?
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Does RCV Work?
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Does RCV Increase Voter Turnout?
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Does RCV Ensure a Majority Winner?
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Is RCV Cheaper?
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Is RCV Faster?
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Does RCV Make Elections More Transparent?
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Does RCV Make Elections More Kind?
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Is RCV Good for 3rd Parties?
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17 States Already Banned RCV
What is Ranked-Choice Voting?
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Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) makes you rank candidates from favorite to least, but it throws out many votes, silencing voters. If you don’t rank every candidate running for office, your vote can get “exhausted” and not count.
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In RCV, if your top candidate loses, your vote might go to someone you don’t like or get tossed out, letting candidates with fewer first-choice votes win.
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Counting RCV votes takes days and sometimes weeks, using complicated rounds of counting that can cause errors and make people distrust the results.
Why Ranked-Choice Voting is not Better
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RCV isn’t better because it breaks the principle “one person, one vote” by giving more power to voters who rank multiple candidates or whose first choice loses, as their votes are counted more times, while others’ votes are only counted once or discarded, making elections unfair.
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RCV is so messy that Burlington, Vermont has stopped using it after it caused confusion and unfair results.
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RCV lets less popular candidates win, like in Alaska where a Democrat won, even though Republicans got more votes. Voters there felt cheated.
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RCV’s slow, confusing vote counting causes errors, making people distrust elections.
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RCV’s tricky rules make voters lose interest and stop voting, proving it’s worse than simple, fair elections.
Why Ranked-Choice Voting is not Fair to all Voters
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RCV isn’t fair because it breaks “one person, one vote”. It gives more power to voters who rank many candidates, while those who rank fewer or make mistakes, like in Alaska 2022, get their votes thrown out.
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RCV confuses the elderly, English as a second language, and low-income voters, who make more ballot errors, like in New York City’s 2021 election, where 135,000 test ballots had mistakes, which silenced their voices.
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When votes get “exhausted” in RCV, like 27% in some elections, voters who don’t rank every candidate lose their say. This makes elections unfair, especially for marginalized groups.
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RCV lets candidates with fewer first-choice votes be the winner. In Maine 2018, this happened, which feels unfair to the voters who picked the most popular candidate.
Why Ballot Exhaustion Means Your Vote may not Count
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“Ballot exhaustion” in RCV means your ballot gets thrown out if you don’t rank every candidate. In Alaska in 2022 and New York City in 2021, many votes didn’t count because voters did not rank all of the candidates.
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Mistakes like ranking the same candidate twice or skipping a candidate make your ballot invalid, so it’s discarded, silencing your voice in the election.
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In RCV, if all the candidates you ranked get eliminated, your vote becomes “exhausted” (thrown out completely), leaving you with no say in the final result.
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Studies show up to 27% of RCV ballots are tossed out due to exhaustion, meaning lots of voters’ choices are ignored. This makes elections unfair.
Why Ranked Choice Voting Does not Work
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RCV doesn’t work because it throws out votes if you don’t rank every candidate. This is called “exhausted” ballots, ignoring many voters and making elections unfair, like in Alaska where 27% of votes were discarded.
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RCV fails by letting candidates with fewer first-choice votes win, skipping the candidate most people like. This happened in Maine.
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RCV’s confusing rules cause voters to make more mistakes on their ballots, leading to more errors and fewer people voting. In San Francisco, there was a drop in voter turnout.
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Counting RCV ballots is slow, taking days or weeks with many rounds, leading to mistakes and distrust. In New York City, an election in 2021 took 15 days to get the results.
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RCV’s tricky system is hard to understand, creates more errors, and discourages voters, which creates messy elections.
Why Ranked Choice Voting Does not Increase Voter Turnout
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RCV doesn’t boost turnout; it lowers it, like in Alaska’s 2022 elections, which had the state’s lowest-ever voter participation at just 44%.
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Cities using RCV, like Minneapolis, St. Paul, and San Francisco, saw fewer voters show up, with San Francisco’s turnout dropping a lot after RCV started.
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In odd-year elections, cities and states using RCV have 8% fewer voters than non-RCV areas, proving RCV discourages people from voting.
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RCV’s confusing ranking rules scare away infrequent, disabled, and elderly voters, who make more mistakes and have their ballots thrown out, meaning less voters have their ballots counted in RCV elections.
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RCV’s tricky system makes voting feel too hard and pointless, so fewer people bother to vote, hurting elections.
Why RCV Does not Ensure a Majority Winner
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RCV doesn’t ensure a true majority winner because up to 27% of ballots can get thrown out as “exhausted”. In one election in Alaska in 2022, the winner didn’t actually get over half the votes.
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In 61% of RCV races, studies show winners didn’t get a real majority due to discarded ballots, making RCV’s claim of fair wins false and misleading.
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RCV uses vote redistribution, which can pick a candidate with fewer first-choice votes. In Maine in 2018, this made a less popular candidate win instead of the candidate most voters picked as first choice.
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RCV’s tricky ranking system confuses voters, causing mistakes that toss out votes, like in New York City 2021, where many voters’ choices didn’t count toward the final winner.
Why Ranked Choice Voting is not Cheaper
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RCV isn’t cheaper—In Minneapolis, for example, more money is spent on elections now than before RCV.
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RCV requires expensive new machines and software to count votes in its complicated ranking system, adding big costs to set up and run elections.
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RCV makes election workers count votes for days or weeks. In New York City’s 2021 election, it took 15 days, costing more money to pay the workers for extra hours.
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RCV needs costly voter education to teach its tricky ranking rules, which confuse voters, especially the elderly or English-second-language voters. More mistakes are made, leading to wasted ballots, which isn’t fair.
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Counting RCV votes takes longer and costs more due to multiple rounds of counting and more errors, like in Alaska’s 2022 elections with delays in getting final election results.
Why Ranked Choice Voting is not Faster
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RCV is supposed to be faster than regular elections, but it’s actually slower and causes more problems.
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RCV isn’t faster because counting the votes takes days or weeks, like 15 days in New York City’s 2021 election and nearly two weeks in Minneapolis in 2009, causing big delays in election results.
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RCV slows down voting because the confusing ballots lead to more mistakes, where voters need to start over on new ballots, causing long lines at the polls.
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RCV’s many counting rounds need all ballots sent to one central place, making the process slower and more error-prone, unlike quick traditional vote counts.
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RCV’s ranking of many candidates for each race makes voters take longer to fill out ballots, leading to backups at polling stations, frustrating everyone.
Why RCV Does not Make Elections More Transparent
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RCV makes elections less transparent because the complex counting takes weeks, like 15 days in New York City 2021 with 135,000 test ballot errors. This makes results hard to trust.
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RCV needs computers and centralized counting in order to calculate the election results. This hides the process from voters and raises doubts about the results.
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RCV’s many rounds of vote redistribution are tough to follow, confusing voters. In Alaska in 2022, voters couldn’t understand how their votes led to the final result.
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Mistakes in RCV counting, like in Maine 2018, make people worry the system isn’t clear or honest, unlike straightforward traditional elections.
Why Ranked Choice Voting Does not Make Elections More Kind
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RCV doesn’t make elections nicer or more civil; in Maine, after RCV began in 2018, negative campaign ads soared, attacking candidates more than ever.
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In Alaska’s 2022 elections, RCV led to candidates in the same political party attacking each other for months, making campaigns meaner and more confusing for voters.
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RCV makes candidates attack rivals to win second-choice votes, as seen in Maine where independent groups spent money bashing candidates.
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RCV’s messy system creates harsher campaigns that upset and confuse voters, like in Alaska where negative ads made people lose trust in elections.
Why Ranked Choice Voting is not Good for 3rd Party Candidates
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RCV is bad for third parties because in Maine since 2018 (when RCV began), no third-party candidates won state Senate or House seats, while Democrats gained 12 seats and Republicans lost 12.
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In Alaska’s 2022 elections, no third-party candidates made the top four, and a Democrat won the U.S. House seat despite Republicans getting more votes.
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RCV uses vote redistribution, which tosses out ballots or redistributes votes to big-party candidates when third-party candidates are eliminated early in the counting.
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RCV’s complicated rules make it hard for lesser-known candidates to compete and confuse voters, who may not rank third-party candidates.
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RCV lets big parties like Democrats and Republicans keep winning, blocking third-party candidates and making elections less fair for them.
Many States Have Already Banned Ranked Choice Voting
2022
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Tennessee
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Florida
2023
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South Dakota
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Idaho
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Montana
2024
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Alabama
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Kentucky
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Louisiana
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Mississippi
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Oklahoma
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Missouri (ballot measure)
2025
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West Virginia
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Wyoming
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Kansas
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North Dakota
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Arkansas
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Iowa