Ranked Choice : A Different Way of Casting and Counting Votes

David C. Kimball and Joseph Anthony

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Can changing the way votes are cast and counted change how campaigns are conducted and who is elected? This chapter examines ranked choice voting, a different set of voting rules than the plurality system we are accustomed to in the . Ranked choice voting asks voters to rank candidates by order of preference, allowing for a more complete expression of a voter’s candidate preferences. Several American cities have recently adopted ranked choice voting for local . Based on our limited experience with these new voting rules, ranked choice voting appears to improve on rules in several ways: (1) attracting more candidates for local office, particularly women and people of color; (2) reducing incentives for negative campaigns; (3) and lessening the burden on voters and local governments by consolidating two elections into one. However, there are concerns that ranked choice voting rules are more complicated for voters and some voters may not take full advantage of these rules.

Issues with Plurality, Winner-Take-All Voting

Casual observers of American may not appreciate how crucial the voting rules are in shaping political competition and determining whose interests are represented in government. Since the nation’s founding, the United States has relied almost exclusively on plurality, or “winner-take-all,” rules for electing government officials. Plurality voting rules are very simple. Candidates compete for an office and voters mark their to indicate the single candidate they prefer the most. The ballots are then counted and the candidate receiving the most votes wins the seat, even if it is not a majority of votes. This is how most elective offices are filled in the United States, and this is how most party nominees are chosen in primary elections. In some states and in many cities, if no candidate receives a majority of votes then the top two finishers advance to a winner-take-

2 all runoff held a few weeks later. The winner of the runoff election then wins the office.

Plurality voting rules are as American as apple pie. Since plurality rules have been used for over two hundred years in the United States, there is a certain amount of comfort and familiarity with these rules. Since the rules are simple, they are easy for voters to understand, and election results are determined as soon as the ballots are counted.

Furthermore, by electing a single representative, plurality systems provide clear lines of responsibility about which constituents are supposed to be represented by a particular official.

However, there are some important consequences of plurality systems. As the name implies, in an election featuring several candidates the winner may receive less than a majority of votes. In other words, the winning candidate may be someone not preferred by a majority of voters. Isn’t democracy supposed to mean that the majority rules? This is not a minor feature of plurality voting rules. For example, in nine of the last eleven gubernatorial elections in the winning candidate received less than a majority of votes (Greenblatt 2016). Similarly, plurality rules helped Donald Trump win the

Republican nomination for president in 2016 even though he earned less than a majority of the popular vote in the nomination contests (McGill 2016). Thus, plurality voting procedures can sometimes thwart the principle of “,” a central principle of democracy.

More often, however, plurality rules tend to exaggerate the political power of the majority party. Voters in the majority tend to support candidates that share their political

3 views and demographic traits. If voters in a minority group prefer different candidates, then they usually lose because they simply do not have the votes to compete with the majority. For minority groups to be competitive, district boundaries need to be drawn in such a way that the minority comprises a significant portion of the voting population (i.e., close to a majority) in some districts. However, drawing districts to favor a particular group is controversial (see Chapter X in this volume). Furthermore, the winner-take-all nature of plurality elections means that the majority party (which usually controls the redistricting process) has an incentive to create as many districts as possible that favor the majority party. As a result, plurality systems tend to award the majority party a larger share of seats in the legislature than its share of the popular vote, particularly if voters in the majority party are roughly evenly distributed geographically in a state or country (Dahl 1998; Calvo and Rodden 2015). For example, in the 2014 elections for the U.S. House of

Representatives, Democratic candidates in Maryland won 57% of the popular vote but earned 7 of the 8 seats up for election (87.5%). Republican candidates in Maryland received 41% of the votes but won only 1 of 8 seats (12.5%). In the same election in

Pennsylvania, Republican candidates received 55% of the vote but won 13 of the state’s 18 seats (72%). When votes are translated into seats in plurality systems, the largest party tends to win a disproportionate share.

A related consequence of plurality rules is that smaller, minor political parties rarely win any elected offices. Under plurality rules, voters can only express a preference for one candidate, and that vote is not transferable to other candidates if a voter’s preferred choice loses. Thus, a voter may prefer a third party or independent candidate, but if he or she chooses this candidate the voter has essentially “wasted” a vote on a lost cause.

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Furthermore, a third party voter may see her least preferred candidate win the election. In other words, third party candidates are often perceived to be spoiler candidates rather than viable choices for voters. Thus, supporters of minority parties or independent candidates usually wind up casting their votes for the least offensive major party candidate.

Similarly, in the American plurality system ambitious politicians are advised to run as a

Democrat or as a Republican in order to have a decent chance of winning an election. Thus, plurality rules tend to produce a system of political competition with two major political parties, limiting the number of choices for voters (Duverger 1954).

Finally, plurality rules seem to influence the tactical side of political campaigns.

Plurality elections produce one winner and many losers, hence the “winner-take-all” moniker. There are no partial winners. The zero-sum nature of plurality voting rules provides a strong incentive for candidates to engage in negative campaigning.

Most other countries do not use plurality rules. Instead, most countries use voting rules which ensure that legislative seats are awarded in close proportion to a party’s voting strength. For example, in national elections in countries such as Belgium, Finland, South

Africa, and Turkey, voters select their preferred political party on the . When ballots are counted each party is awarded a number of seats in the legislature in proportion to its share of the vote. For example, if a party wins 30% of the vote it is awarded 30% of the legislative seats. Since plurality voting rules attract fewer parties and choices for voters, voter turnout tends to be lower in countries with plurality systems (Blais and Carty 1990;

Franklin 1996). Furthermore, plurality rules encourage local party leaders to recruit candidates with broad appeal in their district. Party leaders, who tend to be men, usually

5 look for candidates with the characteristics of previous winners, usually men. A strong incumbency advantage in plurality elections also makes it difficult for female challengers to defeat men who already hold a seat. Thus, women tend to win a smaller share of seats in national legislatures elected under plurality voting rules (Norris 2004). Similarly, since plurality rules favor majority groups, some argue that racial and ethnic minorities tend to be underrepresented to a greater degree in legislatures chosen by plurality voting rules

(Lijphart 1999), although evidence on this hypothesis is mixed (Norris 2004).

Nevertheless, plurality voting rules tend to exaggerate the political representation of majority parties and groups at the expense of minority groups, particularly when the minority population is geographically dispersed. No voting rules are perfect, and plurality rules seem to fall short in terms of giving equal representation to various groups in a democracy.

Ranked Choice Voting as an Alternative

Plurality voting rules are not required by the Constitution or any national law in the

United States, and some states and cities have considered or adopted alternative voting rules.1 Several American jurisdictions now use rules, which allow voters to provide a fuller reporting of their candidate preferences. Preferential rules, which are designed to address some of the weaknesses of winner-take-all, plurality systems, differ from plurality rules in two important ways: (1) how voters complete their ballots, and (2) how ballots are counted. Ranked choice voting (RCV) is one type of preferential voting system that has been adopted in several American cities and in some other countries. In

1 A 1967 federal law requires single-member districts for elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, but the law does not require plurality voting rules.

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RCV systems, voters are asked to rank candidates in order of preference. For example,

Figure 1 shows a portion of the ballot from the 2013 mayoral election in .

Voters mark their first choice for mayor in the first column, their second choice in the second column, and their third choice in the third column. By allowing voters to rank their preferred candidates, RCV allows voters to express preferences for multiple candidates in the same contest. As in Minneapolis, most American cities using RCV ask voters to rank up to three candidates and most use the ballot design featured in Figure 1. There is a consumer-friendly logic to ranked choice voting. For example, suppose you go to an ice cream stand and ask for your favorite flavor in a cone. If they are out of your favorite flavor, rather than go home with nothing, you are likely to order your second favorite flavor. Why can’t voting be more like buying an ice cream cone?

Figure 1: Ballot using Ranked Choice Voting We need the original image Formatted: Highlight

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Counting the ballots tends to be more complex with RCV rules. In almost all

American cities using RCV, votes are counted using an iterative process known as the alternative vote method. In a contest for one seat, first choice votes are counted first. If one candidate has a majority of first choice votes, then that candidate is immediately declared the winner and the election is over. However, if no candidate has a majority, then last-place candidates are eliminated from contention and their votes are re-assigned to other remaining candidates based on the second-choice preferences of those voters. This process of eliminating last-place candidates and reallocating their votes continues until one candidate achieves a majority of votes.2 Thus, RCV elections are designed to hold one

2 Cambridge, Massachusetts is the one RCV city that does not use the alternative vote method to count ballots. Instead, Cambridge uses a single transferrable vote system for its multi-seat elections.

8 election in place of two separate primary and runoff elections that are common in plurality systems. This is why RCV is sometimes called “instant runoff voting.”

Ranked choice voting has been adopted recently in the United States, but it has a longer track record in some other countries. RCV is used in several other English-speaking countries or former British colonies as an alternative to plurality voting rules. For example,

RCV is used for at least some national or local elections in , India, Ireland, ,

New Zealand, and . Furthermore, in many countries RCV is used by political parties to select their leaders. For movie fans, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses RCV to award the Oscar for Best Picture each year.

In the United States, RCV is used primarily for local elections in some American cities. Table 1 lists the cities currently using ranked choice voting. Most RCV cities have adopted this new voting rule within the past ten years. Replacing voting rules that have been used for centuries may be difficult for those who value old traditions. Observers of

American politics may notice that the cities using RCV rules tend to have more liberal political cultures than other parts of the country. Some cities have adopted RCV exclusively for mayoral elections, while other cities have applied RCV to other citywide offices and city council elections. RCV is also used by some states for overseas voters in cases where runoff elections occur too soon after the general election to send runoff ballots out to voters and get them returned in time for counting.

RCV use may soon expand significantly in the United States. In the 2016 election, residents of Maine passed a ballot measure to adopt ranked choice voting for all state and federal elections except President. In the same election Benton County, Oregon voters also

9 passed a measure to use RCV rules in electing countywide officials. Finally, a handful of cities are considering adopting RCV or are waiting for new voting equipment that is compatible with RCV.

Table X.1: American Cities that use RCV

First election City State with RCV Offices Berkeley CA 2010 Mayor, City Council and other municipal races Cambridge MA 1941 City Council and School Board

Minneapolis MN 2009 Mayor, City Council, municipal races

Oakland CA 2010 Mayor, City Council

Portland ME 2011 Mayor only

San Francisco CA 2004 Mayor, City Attorney, Board of Supervisors and five other city offices San Leandro CA 2010 Mayor and City Council

St. Paul MN 2011 Mayor and City Council

Takoma Park MD 2007 Mayor and City Council

Telluride CO 2011 Mayor only

Weighing Pros and Cons of Ranked Choice Voting

Since some jurisdictions are considering whether to replace plurality voting rules with ranked choice voting, it is important to evaluate RCV voting alongside plurality rules.

Ultimately we want to know which system performs better. However, some of the existing research is based solely on case studies of nations or cities that have adopted RCV. In

10 addition, since RCV rules are relatively new, there is limited evidence to evaluate the arguments for and against this election reform. Nevertheless, we can begin to make some assessments of the impact of ranked choice voting rules on candidates, voters, election administration, and political representation.

For voters, being able to indicate second and third choices means that RCV allows voters to provide a more complete accounting of their candidate preferences. Some argue that the process of candidates is straightforward and not much more complicated than picking one candidate. In addition, voters can record a preference for more than one candidate without worrying that they will hurt the chances of their favorite candidate. In cities that have adopted RCV rules a majority of voters typically rank more than one candidate (Mauter 2014; Neely and McDaniel 2015; Burnett and Kogan 2015). In addition, surveys conducted in cities using ranked choice voting indicate that voters generally understand and prefer the RCV rules (Neely, Blash, and Cook 2005; Schultz and Rendahl

2010; Tolbert 2014). Thus, there is some evidence that voters like ranked choice voting and follow the rules properly.

Ranked choice voting rules also have the potential to reduce the costs of administering elections. Recall that many cities using plurality rules hold two elections: a primary election to identify the top two candidates and then a runoff election to determine the winner. Ranked choice voting replaces two elections (primary and runoff) with one

RCV election. Having to fund one less election each cycle can provide significant savings to local governments. However, there are some upfront costs associated with educating the voting public about RCV rules and, in some cases, procuring equipment or software for

11 counting the ballots (Schultz and Rendahl 2010). While election officials may like the idea of reducing the number of elections they administer, ranked choice voting does create some additional work for those officials.

Effects on Campaigns

A major talking point among proponents is that RCV rules foster more deliberative and positive campaigns. RCV allows voters to express multiple preferences, and their votes can be transferred to other candidates. If candidates need to expand their base of support in order to win a majority of votes under RCV rules, then they will need to find ways to become the second choice of voters who prefer other candidates. The pursuit of second choice votes should reduce incentives to attack opposing candidates. Instead, the rules should encourage candidates to find common ground with their competitors. Thus, RCV is theorized to encourage collaboration and civility among competing candidates. Some evidence supports this hypothesis. Voters and candidates in American cities using RCV report less negativity and more satisfaction with campaigns than voters in comparable cities using plurality rules (Donovan, Tolbert, and Gracey 2016; Donovan 2014; see also

Mauter 2014). Similarly, news coverage and social media content devoted to local political campaigns seem to indicate a more civil tone in cities using ranked choice voting rules

(Kropf 2015).

Evidence from other countries using preferential voting rules points to similar conclusions. For example, the competition for second and third choice votes means that preferential voting rules encourage politicians to pay closer attention to their constituents

(Farrell and Scully 2003). The adoption of preferential voting also helps to promote

12 cooperation, bargaining, and civility among rival politicians in other countries (Horowitz

1991; Reilly 2001). Furthermore, in the case of Papua New Guinea, Ben Reilly (1997) concludes that preferential voting rules help bridge ethnic divisions in a divided society.

Donald Horowitz (1985) makes a similar assessment of preferential voting in other countries. Finally, preferential voting rules foster a greater sense of fairness about elections and produce higher levels of public satisfaction with democracy (Farrell and McAllister

2006). In sum, RCV seems to promote more positive campaigns, which voters notice and like.

Effects on Representation

By reducing voter concerns about “wasted votes” for weaker candidates, ranked choice voting rules could provide incentives for more candidates to run for elected offices.

Limited evidence seems to support this hypothesis. In our own research on city elections, the number of candidates running for mayor jumps substantially after the implementation of RCV rules (from an average of 4 candidates in plurality elections to an average of 10 candidates in RCV elections). In Minneapolis the number of city council candidates doubled after the adoption of RCV (Kimball and Anthony 2016). This is an admittedly small body of evidence, but it suggests that RCV produces more choices for voters.

Relatedly, RCV should encourage minority candidates to run for office, since the fear of a spoiler effect is removed. Under RCV rules voters from minority groups can support multiple candidates from their community without fearing that they will hurt the chances of their most preferred candidate. Put differently, members of a minority group can vote for a second choice candidate if their most preferred candidate loses. Furthermore, some

13 women tend to shy away from running for office due to the combative nature of plurality, winner-take-all elections (Kanthak and Woon 2015). Preferential voting rules, by promoting a less adversarial campaign environment, may attract more female candidates.

In recent research, Sarah John and colleagues (2016) find increasing numbers of minority candidates, particularly women of color, in city elections using ranked choice voting rules.

In addition, they find some evidence that women, and women of color, have a greater chance of winning in RCV elections. The increasing diversity of local governments in

Oakland and after the adoption of RCV is striking. To be fair, it is not clear whether the growing diversity of elected officials is strictly due to the adoption of ranked choice voting rules or a by-product of the growing diversity of the voting population in those cities. Nevertheless, there is at least suggestive evidence that RCV rules attract more candidates and boost the chances for historically underrepresented groups in local government.

Voter Confusion

However, more choices and more options for recording candidate preferences means that RCV ballots present voters with more complexity than plurality ballots. Some voting experts worry that the task of ranking candidates in RCV elections may be confusing for some voters, especially since American voters have grown accustomed to making one choice under plurality voting rules. Taking full advantage of the ability to rank multiple candidates will require voters to gather more information about the candidates running in

14 an election. The increased complexity of the ballot and the higher information costs may disproportionately disenfranchise low-income voters and others lacking in resources. We have seen this before in American elections using plurality rules. For example, when voting machines or ballots have confusing features they tend to create more voting errors, particularly among low income and minority voters (Herrnson et al. 2008; Kropf and

Kimball 2012). Furthermore, other recent election reforms intended to better serve voters, such as expanded early voting, may have worsened socioeconomic biases in voter turnout

(Berinsky 2005). There is reason to worry that RCV will have a similar impact on voters.

There is some evidence of similar disparities in voter participation in RCV elections.

For example, in some RCV elections low-income and minority voters were less likely to use all the available (Neely et al. 2005; Schultz and Rendahl 2010). Some studies examine more specific measures of voter confusion. One measure focuses on “overvotes” – where a voter selects too many candidates in a contest or column of the ballot. A study of

San Francisco elections found higher rates of overvotes in RCV elections, although still usually less than 1% of ballots cast (Neely and McDaniel 2015). The same study found that overvotes are more common in minority precincts in RCV elections, although the same racial disparity appears in plurality elections as well. A study of Minneapolis found no racial or income disparities in overvotes after the adoption of RCV voting rules (Kimball and Anthony 2016).

Another measure of voter confusion is “spoiled” ballots. If a voting mistake, such as an overvote, is recognized by a voter or by the voting equipment, the voter can return the ballot in exchange for a new one. These ballots with the mistake are “spoiled” and not

15 counted. The voter then completes a new ballot, which is counted. While spoiled ballots do get corrected they can help diagnose voter difficulty in completing the ballot. [this seems to Formatted: Highlight imply all spoiled ballots are counted. Is that so? Yes because the spoiled ballots are replaced by new ballots.] In Minneapolis, the rate of spoiled ballots increased from roughly Formatted: Highlight

1% in plurality elections to 4% in RCV elections (Schultz and Rendahl 2010; Kimball and

Anthony 2016). Furthermore, plurality and RCV elections seem to produce the same socioeconomic disparities in spoiled ballots (Kimball and Anthony 2016). A final measure of voter confusion examines “residual votes” – the difference between the total ballots cast and the number of valid votes cast for a particular office. If a lot of voters fail to cast a valid vote for a contest then that may indicate voter confusion for that portion of the ballot. A recent study finds no change in the rate of residual votes in city elections after the adoption of RCV rules (Kimball and Anthony 2016). In sum, ranked choice voting rules deserve continued study to determine whether a substantial number of voters are confused by the voting rules.

Voter Turnout

There is a broader interest in the impact of RCV on voter turnout. Some proponents of ranked choice voting hope that by fostering a more collegial campaign environment and attracting more candidates, RCV rules will boost voter turnout. On the other hand, some opponents worry that the added complexity of casting and counting RCV ballots might depress turnout, particularly among disadvantaged groups. Here the evidence appears to

16 be mixed. A study of San Francisco found that turnout among some racial groups declined after the adoption of RCV. In addition, age and education-related turnout disparities are more pronounced in San Francisco after the adoption of RCV (McDaniel 2016). In

Minneapolis the impact of RCV rules on turnout appears to be minimal (Schultz and

Rendahl 2010; Kimball and Anthony 2016). Two larger studies of American cities comparing RCV and plurality rules reach somewhat different conclusions. One finds a drop in turnout in RCV elections, at least in those held in odd-numbered years when the stimulus of other statewide and national elections is missing (McDaniel 2016). The other finds no significant change in turnout in general elections after the adoption of RCV rules (Kimball and Anthony 2016).

A final measure of voter participation focuses on how many ballots are counted in the first and final rounds of voting and counting. Some examine “ballot exhaustion” in RCV elections. That is, if some voters do not mark the full array of ranked preferences afforded by the ballot, if they cast overvotes, or if they only prefer relatively weak candidates, then their votes may not factor into the final determination of the winner under the iterative rules for counting ballots. One study of RCV elections in California cities finds that between

10% and 27% of the ballots are exhausted by the final round of ballot counting. The average was around 15% (Burnett and Kogan 2015). Importantly, due to ballot exhaustion the winning candidate in each election did not receive a majority of all ballots cast in the election. This would appear to undermine a primary goal of producing a majority winner with ranked choice voting rules.

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One weakness of the California study is that it does not compare exhaustion in ranked choice voting elections to a similar drop in voter turnout between the primary election and the runoff election under plurality rules. The drop in turnout depends on the timing of the two elections. That is, which election is scheduled in November, which coincides with other statewide elections? When the primary election is held in November, then turnout tends to be much lower in the subsequent runoff election held a few weeks later. When the runoff is held in November and the primary election is held prior to

November, then the drop in turnout occurs in the primary election. Either way, in our study of local elections we find that turnout in the November election is roughly 50% higher than turnout in the earlier primary election or in the later runoff election (Kimball and Anthony

2016). In other words, only half of the voters had their votes count in both rounds of the election.

When adopting one RCV election, held in November, to replace two elections held under plurality rules, RCV avoids the large gap in voter turnout between the primary and runoff elections held using plurality rules. The adoption of RCV improves on turnout in the primary or runoff election held outside of November under plurality rules (Kimball and

Anthony 2016). As a result, even with ballot exhaustion RCV dramatically reduces the gap in voter participation between the first round and final round of voting. Put differently, a

15% rate of ballot exhaustion in RCV elections is preferable to a 50% drop in turnout between the primary and runoff elections under plurality rules. However, this improvement in voter participation is due to the consolidation of elections, rather than the

RCV rules per se.

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Paradoxical Results?

As a final assessment, it is worth noting that in certain circumstances there is a chance that ranked choice voting rules can produce paradoxical outcomes. For example, it is possible that a candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a head-to-head contest still loses an election with RCV rules, the so-called “thwarted majorities” paradox

(Fisher and Brams 1983). Plurality voting rules can produce the same type of perverse result, and there appear to be no reliable estimates of the frequency with which these less desirable outcomes occur. That is, we don’t know whether these weird outcomes are more or less common with ranked choice voting. However, this particular unusual result seems to have occurred in a 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vermont using ranked choice voting rules (Gierzynski 2010). Burlington dumped ranked choice voting rules after that

2009 election. As more elections are held with RCV rules, it will be important to see whether the Burlington case is an outlier.

Conclusion

Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase “laboratories of democracy” to describe the federal nature of American government. That is, states and cities have some ability to adopt new public policies and see how they work on a relatively small scale. The rest of the country can learn from those experiences and determine whether those local policy experiments should be scrapped, modified, or expanded to other locations. Several American cities are currently experimenting with ranked choice voting rules, and there is much that we can learn from these efforts. Furthermore, RCV’s footprint may expand if more jurisdictions follow the lead of Maine and Benton County, Oregon.

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It is still early to make very definitive assessments about the impact of ranked choice voting rules in the United States, but we can reach some tentative conclusions. By allowing voters to rank multiple candidates for the same office, RCV offers voters a chance to provide a fuller expression of their candidate preferences. Voters can indicate back-up selections without hurting the chances of their most-preferred candidates. This seems to be an important improvement on the “wasted vote” problem with plurality rules.

There is a growing body of evidence indicating that ranked choice voting rules alter the behavior of candidates and the character of campaigns. RCV rules give candidates an incentive to develop closer relationships with their constituents and to reach out to rival politicians. Thus, RCV rules seem to produce more collaborative campaigns with less of the negative attacks that are hallmarks of American politics. This is no small feat. What we don’t know yet is whether ranked choice voting rules also create more productive and collegial relationships among politicians once they take office. Does RCV help reduce gridlock and improve government performance? This may be too much to expect from ranked choice voting, but given how polarized American politics is today, a more effective government is the ultimate goal of many reformers.

Ranked choice voting appears to offer some other benefits for state and local governments. First, ranked choice voting may reduce the cost of election administration by consolidating two local elections into one election. Second, ranked choice voting can dramatically reduce the drop in voter turnout between the primary and runoff elections so common with plurality rules. Third, ranked choice voting seems to attract more candidates for local offices that frequently go begging for political talent.

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Voter participation may be the one dark cloud on the horizon of ranked choice voting. Since the United States elects more than half a million government officials, our ballots are longer and more complex than ballots in other countries. Ranked choice voting rules add to the complexity of voting. At a minimum, ranked choice voting rules will impose additional costs on voters to understand the rules, rank candidates, and properly cast a ballot. The current evidence on voter turnout is somewhat ambivalent. On balance, it does not appear that overall turnout changes much after the adoption of RCV. But there is some evidence of increased voter confusion with ranked choice voting rules, particularly among disadvantaged communities. This is to be expected with new voting rules, and plurality elections are also known for biases in voter participation. Nevertheless, voter participation with ranked choice voting rules will require careful scrutiny going forward. Furthermore, in places that adopt RCV rules it will be crucial to maintain continuous voter education efforts to explain the voting rules.

American voters are so accustomed to plurality voting rules that they may not be aware of some of its weaknesses or of the existence of alternative voting systems.

Regardless of the outcome, ranked choice voting is a worthwhile experiment in democracy, to see how an alternative to plurality voting works.

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