An Argument for Ranked-Choice Voting

By Nathan Piette

Staff Writer

I want to vote for a candidate because I believe in them. That should be a fairly ordinary expectation in a democracy.

Instead, American elections often come with a warning: Choose carefully, because voting for the person you want might be voting for the person with the most big-money advertising dollars.

Ranked-choice voting offers a better approach. Instead of selecting one candidate, voters rank their options: first choice, second choice, third choice.

In its common single-winner version, a candidate wins by receiving more than half the votes being counted. If nobody reaches that threshold, the last-place candidate is eliminated. Their voters’ ballots transfer to their next remaining choice. The process continues until someone wins.

Your backup choice counts only when your higher-ranked-choices are eliminated. You still have one vote.

This is hardly an untested invention. Australia introduced preferential voting for its House of Representatives in 1918, partly to address vote splitting between competing political groups.

In its first federal use, a candidate who initially received about 26% ultimately won after preferences were distributed. The first-round leader had received approximately 43%. 

Even when voters' top choices didn’t win, voters were ultimately more satisfied with ranked-choice voting, as their second or third candidate often won over their last choice. 

Ireland also has a long history of ranking candidates. Its parliamentary system uses a related version, single transferable vote, to fill multiple seats proportionally. Irish election law formally provided for that method in 1923. That distinction matters: ranking candidates can support different electoral systems, rather than one universal formula.

Americans have experience, too. Cambridge, Massachusetts has used proportional ranked voting for municipal elections since 1941. Maine began using ranked-choice voting in 2018. We do not need to cross an ocean to see it operating.

The appeal is straightforward. Voters gain more freedom to support their favorite candidate while retaining a backup. Candidates have a reason to seek support beyond their most committed followers.

That second incentive interests me most.

Consider a lobbying organization’s affiliated political action committee or a wealthy outside spending group. Under ordinary plurality voting, helping a favored candidate hold a loyal minority can be enough when opponents divide the remaining votes.

Under ranked-choice voting, that strategy becomes less straightforward. A candidate might lead initially and still lose because other voters consistently prefer someone else.

In that situation, expensive advertising designed to mobilize a narrow base may be insufficient. 

A candidate also needs people willing to rank them second or third.

My argument is that this could make financed campaigns less predictable and encourage candidates to build broader relationships with constituents. Attacking everyone outside your coalition becomes a risk when you might need their next preference.

However, possibility is not proof.

A 2024 study of Alaska’s combined nonpartisan primary and ranked-choice system found little immediate effect on campaign finance in state legislative elections. Donors can adapt, support multiple candidates, or finance messages aimed at voters’ rankings. Changing the ballot does not remove money from politics.

The voting system has weaknesses too. When voters rank only candidates who are later eliminated, their ballots stop participating. A winner can therefore receive a majority of the remaining ballots without winning a majority of all ballots originally cast. Research examining 182 American elections found this was a recurring limitation, although other mathematical failures were uncommon.

That makes clear instructions, accessible ballots, and transparent counting essential. Campaign finance disclosure and enforcement remain necessary as well.

I support expanding ranked-choice voting because it gives voters more room to express themselves and candidates more reason to listen.

It cannot guarantee that elected officials will prioritize citizens over donors. It can make broader voter acceptance part of the path to office.

Our ballots should let us say whom we believe in, whom we could accept, and whom we reject.

I propose an expansion of these ideas. I think we should try nonpartisan primaries country wide. 

We should have multiple rounds of voting as the standard until we whittle down the pool to three candidates. We should rank further than first, second, and third, and rank every candidate in every round. Let’s make it impossible for large spending groups to influence our elections. 

Democracy should have room for more than our least disappointing option.