Why ranked choice voting

Paul abides by ranked-choice voting, too, as well as St. Louis Park, and newly in Minnetonka and Bloomington. Ranked choice is a system that allows voters to choose up to three candidates and rank them by preference: first choice, second choice and third choice.

The idea is that if your top choice loses the race by a long shot, your vote can still count toward your second choice, who may be more of a competitive candidate.

Regardless, your first-choice vote will be considered before any other candidates you ranked. A candidate needs a majority — more than 50 percent of the votes — to win. If no candidate reaches that majority after all first-choice votes are counted, candidates with the fewest first-choice votes are eliminated.

Then, ballots with first-choice votes for the eliminated candidate will get their votes transferred to their second-choice picks.

And then vote totals are counted again. This goes on until one candidate remains. Gordon Weil, a former Maine state agency head and municipal selectman, argued in a piece for CentralMaine. The map below provides the number of ranked-choice voting bills that have been introduced in each state as of November Hover over a state to see the exact number of bills.

A darker shade of red indicates a greater number of relevant bills. In those states shaded in white, relevant bills have not been introduced. For state-specific details, click a state in the map below or select a state from the drop-down menu beneath the map. On doing so, a list of state legislation will display, including information about bill status and links to full text.

This information is provided by BillTrack To return to the map, click "Back" in the upper righthand corner of the legislation list. The following is a list of recent ranked-choice voting bills that have been introduced in or passed by state legislatures.

To learn more about each of these bills, click the bill title. This information is provided by BillTrack50 and LegiScan. Note: Due to the nature of the sorting process used to generate this list, some results may not be relevant to the topic.

If no bills are displayed below, no legislation pertaining to this topic has been introduced in the legislature recently. The term ballot measures describes all questions or issues that appear on election ballots for voters to approve or reject. Ballot measures may apply to state and local jurisdictions including cities, counties, special districts, etc.

Initiatives permit citizens to propose or initiate statutes or constitutional amendments via petition. Referenda allow citizens to refer statutes passed by legislatures to the ballot for enactment or repeal by voters.

Legislative referrals appear on voters' ballots as a result of actions taken by legislatures; these can include state statutes, constitutional amendments, and bond issues. The sections below list ballot measures related to electoral systems and campaign laws in and These are proposed measures that may or may not make the ballot.

For additional information about the status of these measures, click the links below. Ballotpedia has tracked the following ballot measure s pertaining to electoral systems for Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. Share this page Follow Ballotpedia.

What's on your ballot? Jump to: navigation , search. As of , one state Maine had implemented RCV at the state level, eight states contained jurisdictions that had implemented RCV at some level, and another five states contained jurisdictions that had adopted but not yet implemented RCV in local elections. In November , Alaska approved a ballot initiative to establish ranked-choice voting and top-four primaries with Voters in Massachusetts defeated a ballot initiative to establish ranked-choice voting for state-level elections with In November , Maine voters were the first to vote for president using ranked-choice voting.

The Maine Republican Party filed a veto referendum to suspend LD and let voters decide whether to approve it. On September 22, , the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that not enough signatures were submitted for the veto referendum to qualify it for the ballot, which meant LD was not suspended. In November , New York City voters approved a measure to enact ranked-choice voting for primary and special elections beginning in This made NYC the most populous jurisdiction in the U.

Choose your state West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source. Categories : Electoral systems concepts and issues Ranked-choice voting Election policy tracking. Hidden category: Election policy expansion content. However, if no candidate receives a majority of the first-choice votes cast, an elimination process begins. The candidate who received the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated.

Next, each vote cast for that candidate will be transferred to the voter's next-ranked choice among the remaining candidates. This elimination process will continue until one candidate receives a majority and is deemed the winner. The Ranked-Choice ballot card is designed in a side-by-side column format and lists the names of all of the candidates in three repeating columns.

This format allows a voter to select a first-choice candidate in the first column, a second-choice candidate in the second column, and a third-choice candidate in the third column.

Voters will connect the head and tail of the arrow next to the name of the candidate they choose. A voter may—but is not required to—rank three choices for each office.

If there are fewer than three candidates for the same office, or to rank fewer than three candidates, you may leave any remaining columns blank.