Ranked choice voting’s Big Adventure on November 8
RCV is on the ballot in a record 10 locations; and being used for elections in 12 other locations
Dear DemocracySOS readers – as we stand on the cusp of another election – one in which the balance of power in the US Congress is at stake, and signs of voter suppression and a faltering democracy are lurking – I want to take a moment to reflect with you on the first six months of DemocracySOS’s existence.
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Now back to our regular programming…Yes, it’s election time again! Some people roll their eyes over this ritual of democracy, and let their internalized cynicism leak out like radioactivity. “If voting mattered, they’d make it illegal,” “it’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes,” that sort of thing. Certainly there are a lot of alarming stories out there about the potential for voter suppression, stolen elections, losers refusing to concede, a partisan Supreme Court. As the negativity increases, some voter’s tune out and stay home, leaving the playing field even more in the grip of the partisans. Things do feel perilous, in certain ways.
Yet in the midst of this already tumultuous election there are points of light, I do believe. We have to remember that human governance has always been a fraught struggle, often advancing in incremental steps. As one example of a step forward, I would point to the amazing recent progress of Ranked Choice Voting in the United States. I’ve been involved in democracy reform for 30 years and I have never witnessed such a banner year for a single reform as this year. We are seeing an outbreak of RCV democracy, all across the country. What could be more democratic than people voting on how to improve their democracy?
Allow me to take you by the hand and show you what’s going on out there. It’s a big country, but we are making progress. Already a total of 55 cities, states and counties, with 11 million voters across the nation, are using RCV. Military and overseas voters in six states cast RCV ballots in federal runoff elections, and Democratic primaries in four states have used it to nominate their presidential choices, while the GOP used it to select its gubernatorial candidate in Virginia.
Now, on November 8th, ten of those RCV cities and two of the states will be using it. Voters in those locations will elect various officeholders, including governor, US Senator, federal and state legislators, mayors, city councilmembers and more.
In addition, a record 10 locations across the country will vote this November 8 on whether to change their current electoral system to RCV. That includes the largest cities in several states, as well as small towns and the entire state of Nevada.
Here’s a quick rundown. Get out your scorecard and keep track on Election Day.
Where RCV will be used on Nov 8
Alaska
Alaska has been garnering the most national attention in recent months due to its first RCV election in August. That was a special election to fill a congressional vacancy that resulted in the election of Democrat Mary Peltola, who defied the odds and surprisingly defeated two Republicans, Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, in this conservative state. Next Tuesday, the same three candidates will compete in a rematch to see who will fill that seat permanently, and polls indicate that it is going to be close.
But that’s not all. RCV will also be used to elect Alaska’s governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Senator and dozens of state senate and house members. Alaska combined RCV with top-four open primaries, meaning the top four candidates for each seat get to compete in the general election. Many analysts are particularly watching the US Senate contest, where moderate GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski faces off against Trump firebrand Kelly Tshibaka. Since Murkowski is being challenged by a candidate from the right wing of her own party, her path to reelection involves winning first-choice support from independent-minded and centrist voters, and second-choice support from Democratic voters.
Maine
Maine first used RCV in 2018, and now will use it for a seat in the US House of Representatives, after also using it in partisan primaries this past June. Like Alaska, Maine features a rematch, in this case for the 2nd congressional district between Democrat incumbent Jared Golden and the former GOP representative he defeated in 2018, Bruce Poliquin, when Golden won a come-from-behind RCV victory in the second round.
Maine’s largest city, Portland, which has used RCV for mayor since 2010, voted to expand it in 2020 to also apply to city council and school board races. Now the 81% of Portlanders who supported the RCV expansion will have a chance to use RCV for multiple offices.
Other cities using RCV this November 8 include:
San Francisco, to elect district attorney, six members of the Board of Supervisors (city council) and several other offices. San Francisco has used RCV since 2004, longer than any other city except Cambridge, MA.
Oakland CA, which has used RCV since 2010, to elect its mayor in a very competitive race with 10 candidates and no clear front runners, as well as three city council seats.
Three cities are using RCV for the first time, including Corvallis, OR which adopted RCV by a city council vote in 2022 and will use it to elect its mayor and city council; Palm Desert, CA, which adopted proportional ranked choice voting (also known as single transferable vote) as part of a California Voting Rights Act settlement; and Albany, CA, which also adopted proportional RCV but by ballot initiative with 73% voter support, will elect its city council and school board. Other cities using RCV to elect various offices on November 8 include Berkeley CA, San Leandro CA, Takoma Park, Maryland, and Arden, Delaware.
As a special bonus, Burlington VT will use RCV in December to elect its city council. This one is particularly interesting because Burlington adopted RCV to elect its mayor in 2005, then repealed it after that mayor became embroiled in a scandal. So it’s “back to the future” for Burlington.
Where RCV will be voted on this November 8
Ranked Choice Voting has had a remarkable run of victories over the last six years. From 2016 thru 2021, voters weighed in on 20 ballot measures, including four statewide measures (two in Maine) and 16 measures in cities and counties. RCV emerged victorious in 18 of those ballot measures. Often the victory margin has been significant, with an average of nearly 30 percentage points in the last 13 cities to vote on RCV.
But as they say in the stock market: “Past results are no guarantee of future performance.” The more successful and popular RCV has become, the more opponents of reform are taking it seriously and starting to raise more campaign funds to oppose it. Entrenched incumbents in particular have emerged as the opposition in some of these races. RCV is in their crosshairs.
The two most important battles by far are one for RCV for the state of Nevada, and a second in which proportional ranked choice voting will be voted on in Portland OR.
Nevada
Nevada will vote on a state constitutional amendment to establish a “final five voting” system, after Nevada Voters First collected sufficient signatures to place Measure 3 on the ballot. FFV includes a nonpartisan open primary to select the top five candidates, regardless of party, then RCV would be used in the November election to choose among the top five finalists. Nevada is a state where over a third of voters are registered as some category of “independent,” more than either Democrats or Republicans. So RCV combined with an open primary would empower all of those independent voters. Maybe that’s why the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as their allied groups , are strongly opposed to Measure 3.
Portland, Oregon
Portlanders will vote on whether to adopt proportional ranked choice voting for city council elections. This is an important one to watch since P-RCV is really the best method for a large, “multi-everything” city of 600,000 Portlanders. If it passes, other cities may follow Portland’s example over the next few years. The measure was put on the ballot by a near-unanimous vote of a charter commission, which was grappling with how to provide adequate representation for different minority groups that are geographically dispersed. Portland United for Change is leading the “Yes” campaign, backed by the largest coalition ever assembled in Portland with over 50 local organizational endorsers. The measure has been polling well but faces major opposition by wealthy and well-connected interests in government and business who are wedded to the status quo, since they know how to manipulate it.
Portland is the largest city in Multnomah County, where a charter commission voted almost unanimously to place a referendum on the ballot to adopt RCV for Oregon’s most populous county, with more than 800,0000 residents. Leading this effort is Oregon Ranked Choice Voting and the Coalition of Communities of Color.
Washington state is a hotbed of RCV activity this Nov 8. First there is Seattle, which is in a battle against both Approval Voting and the current plurality system used in local elections to narrow a larger field to the top-two candidates. Voters will first vote on a question asking if they want to change the primary election system from its current method, then vote on whether they support an RCV primary or approval voting primary. Groups like Seattle for RCV and FairVote Washington are leading the charge, and early polling looked good.
Then there’s San Juan County, Washington, where a charter commission placed a charter amendment on the ballot to adopt RCV for local elections. And Clark County, which is Washington’s fifth largest with over 400,000 residents, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Here too a charter commission voted 11 to 4 to put an RCV measure on the ballot.
Other places where RCV is on the ballot include Fort Collins, Colorado, where the city council voted 6-1 to advance an RCV measure to the November ballot. If Ranked Choice Voting for Fort Collins manages to pass it, Fort Collins will join five other Colorado cities and towns that use RCV. Then there’s Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago on Lake Michigan, where an effort led by to RCV for Evanston could result in their city becoming the first in Illinois to adopt RCV. And there’s the “other” Portland, in Maine, where a charter commission in the state’s largest city voted unanimously (12-0) to enable the city council to pass ordinances to use proportional ranked choice voting for any of the city’s multi-winner elections (RCV is already used for all city elections based on two prior charter amendments approved by the voters).
So get the popcorn out, some of these elections are going to be nail biters. More Americans than ever have heard of ranked choice voting, understand it and seem to have a generally favorable view. The movement for a better democracy may be poised for new breakthroughs. But one thing I’ve learned in 30 years of political reform work is that in every election there are winners and losers. And the losers are always looking for reasons they lost, something or someone to blame it on, besides looking in the mirror. So expect there will be a lot of post-election whiners complaining about RCV!
Steven Hill @StevenHill1776
This is an excellent history of the background and the growing momentum of ranked choice voting in this country as well as a thorough review of the record number of decisions voters will make this month concerning ranked choice voting. As is usual in any election season "you win some, you lose some" as will no doubt be true with the ranked choice ballot issues.
I fully agree however with Julie Anderson, a candidate for Secretary of State in Washington: It's not a question of IF ranked choice voting will eventually become the predominate voting system, it's a question of WHEN. Fortunately voters in many jurisdictions nationwide have an opportunity this month to hasten that inevitability.