Several states could change how their elections are run

Voters in six states and Washington, D.C., are set to decide in November whether to change how they elect their leaders.

Ballot measures in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, D.C., will ask residents if they want to institute ranked choice voting, an approach that allows voters to list candidates in order of preference instead of selecting just one. Three of the proposals would also replace party primaries with nonpartisan contests, and one (Oregon) would extend ranked choice voting to both primary and general elections for some statewide and federal offices.

Meanwhile, voters in Alaska, which approved ranked choice voting and open primaries in 2020, will vote on whether to repeal the voting system. Missouri will vote on whether to ban it altogether.

Ranked choice voting has been growing steadily in recent years. Nationwide, 62 jurisdictions use the voting method. Maine was the first state to adopt ranked choice voting in federal elections in 2018.

Proponents of the approach argue that ranked choice voting improves participation in elections and promotes better competition among candidates. But critics argue that is confusing and undemocratic.

Now the approach that is supposed to reduce polarization appears to be dividing people along party lines and receiving its first real backlash. In addition to the Alaska and Missouri ballot measures, lawmakers in several red states this year voted to ban ranked choice voting at all levels: Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma. In total, 10 states prohibit ranked choice voting.

Only two states, Maine and Alaska, currently use ranked choice voting.

But it is Alaska’s experience that supporters of ranked choice voting point to. An analysis by the Unite America Institute, a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan electoral reform, said that in 2022, after Alaska implemented ranked choice voting, the state saw increased “meaningful participation” and competition, as well as better representation ideologically and demographically.

The analysis found that elections were more competitive: Just 12% of the state’s legislative general elections were uncontested in 2022, compared to double that in 2020.

“There was a 60% increase in the number of voters who cast a ballot that mattered, meaning they cast a ballot in an election that wasn’t predetermined by party affiliation alone,” Nick Troiano, founding executive director of Unite America, said on a webinar in April. “[The reform] didn’t advantage one party or ideology over another. What it did do was allow voters to use their meaningful ballots to make nuanced decisions about the leaders they wanted to represent them.”

Nevertheless, Alaska, where Rep. Mary Peltola became the first Democrat to represent the state in Congress since 1972 under ranked choice voting, could end its experiment with the system this fall. The ballot initiative would reinstate the party primary election system, followed by a general election between those primary winners. Peltola’s victory sparked massive debate in 2022 among Alaskans, and lawmakers have already tried to repeal ranked choice voting.

The group Alaskans for Honest Elections argues that ranked choice voting is “confusing” and “takes much longer to declare a winner.”

“Using the party primary system mitigates the likelihood that a candidate who is disapproved by a majority of voters will get elected, allow Alaskans to vote for the candidates that most accurately reflect their values, encourage greater third-party and independent participation in elections, and provide a stronger mandate of one voter, one vote,” the group said.

Meanwhile, supporters in Colorado argue a vote in favor of ranked choice voting will “empower voters and foster better elections,” and that it will save localities money as it can replace top-two runoffs by finding the “consensus of the majority.” The RCV for Colorado group estimated that, for example, Denver could save $1.2 million through ranked choice voting by not having to hold a top-two runoff.

Supporters of the Nevada measure argue that ranked choice voting “leads to increased civility and more accountable officeholders.” This is because candidates are not only looking to be someone’s first choice but also their second or third, so the thinking goes that they will be less inclined to sling mud at their opponents and in doing so turn off potential voters.

Opponents reject many of those arguments, however. In a statement released by the Idaho Republican Party, Brent Regan, the chair of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, said ranked choice voting is a “convoluted and confusing and expensive voting system” that should be rejected by voters.

Regan said it would not restore open primaries, but instead would mean a large “jungle primary.” He added that the current system does not disenfranchise voters as they are free to register as party supporters to vote in existing primaries. Having too many candidates in a jungle primary also prevents having “meaningful debates or forums to help you decide,” Regan said, and does not take power away from political parties to give to voters.

In a 2021 analysis of ranked choice voting in Maine for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, researcher Jesse Clark found it “does not have most of the behavioral and campaign effects that reformers tout as potential benefits of the system,” but that more research is required as the impact of reforms can be hard to trace.

Were ranked-choice voting to be enacted, state governments could face several practical considerations.

Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said in a July letter to the state legislature that increased spending would be needed to raise public awareness of the new system, while tabulation would also become more complicated.

McGrane noted that vendors in Idaho have said that the two- voter tabulation system used could handle a new ballot, but that finding certified machines capable of tallying votes and paying for them would be a “very significant undertaking,” especially for the counties as they run elections.

The National Conference of State Legislatures said there are several other administrative and procedural questions state officials may need to consider, such as whether the overall process is transparent or if there are any other statutory changes needed to implement an alternative voting system like ranked choice voting.