Ranked choice voting finds success in Utah in 2021

Voters in twenty Utah cities used ranked choice voting (RCV) for their local elections in 2021 as part of the state's RCV municipal pilot program. An additional three cities opted in to the pilot program but did not have enough declared candidates to need ranked ballots.Ranked choice ballots elected mayors and city councilors with broad support from the electorate, voters overwhelmingly chose to use the ranked ballot to express multiple preferences, voters reported that they liked using RCV, election integrity was upheld as results were confirmed in a recount, and state legislators have continued to express support for the program

Monopoly Politics 2022 Report

Produced every two years since 1997, FairVote's Monopoly Politics analysis emphasizes what really matters in congressional elections over candidates, platforms, and issues: partisanship.This report presents our full 2022 House of Representatives projections and methodology, examines decades-long trends in incumbent advantage and crossover representatives, and presents the Fair Representation Act as the solution to the dysfunction in the House of Representatives

Ranked Choice Voting in New York City: An In-Depth Analysis

This report examines the first citywide ranked choice voting (RCV) elections in New York City, conducted in June 2021. FairVote analyzed campaign activity, voter turnout, demographic trends, and cast vote records.We find that RCV helped elect the most diverse NYC government ever, voter turnout at its highest point in decades, voters in all demographic groups used rankings at a high rate, and RCV winners had broad consensus support from the voters. The report concludes with recommendations for best practices in future New York City RCV elections

A Majority Rule Philosophy for Instant Runoff Voting

We present the concept of ordered majority rule, a property of Instant Runoff Voting, and compare it to the familiar concept of pairwise majority rule of Condorcet methods. Ordered majority rule establishes a social order among the candidates such that that relative order between any two candidates is determined by voters who do not prefer another major candidate. It ensures the election of a candidate from the majority party or coalition while preventing an antagonistic opposition party or coalition from influencing which candidate that may be. We show how IRV is the only voting method to satisfy ordered majority rule, for a self-consistently determined distinction between major and minor candidates, and that ordered majority rule is incompatible with the properties of Condorcet compliance, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and monotonicity. Finally, we present some arguments as to why ordered majority rule may be preferable to pairwise majority rule, using the 2022 Alaska special congressional election as a case study.Comment: 11 page

Lessons from the Use of Ranked Choice Voting in American Presidential Primaries

Grounded in experience in 2020, both major political parties have reasons to expand use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in their 2024 presidential primaries. RCV may offer a ‘win-win’ solution benefiting both the parties and their voters. RCV would build on both the pre-1968 American tradition of parties determining a coalitional presidential nominee through multiple ballots at party conventions and the modern practice of allowing voters to effectively choose their nominees in primaries. Increasingly used by parties around the world in picking their leaders, RCV may allow voters to crowd-source a coalitional nominee. Most published research about RCV focuses on state and local elections. In contrast, this article analyzes the impact on voters, candidates, and parties from five state Democratic parties using RCV in party-run presidential nomination contests in 2020. First, it uses polls and results to examine how more widespread use of RCV might have affected the trajectory of contests for the 2016 Republican nomination. Second, it contrasts how more than three million voters in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries backed withdrawn candidates with the low rate of such wasted votes for withdrawn candidates in the states with RCV ballots. Finally, it concludes with an examination of how RCV might best interact with the parties’ current rules and potential changes to those rules

Ranked Choice Voting Elections Benefit Candidates and Voters of Color

This report examines how voters of various races and ethnicities interact with ranked choice voting (RCV) elections. Previous research has shown that RCV is associated with improved political representation for people of color; this report explores why this is. FairVote studied the question from two perspectives—the candidates and the voters—and outline their findings here