On Election Day, more states will consider whether to approve ranked-choice voting

WASHINGTON — Several states could soon change how their elections work in coming years.

On Election Day, voters will decide on a record number of ballot measures about ranked-choice voting.

The system allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, going from first, second, third and so on.

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From there, this is how the ranked-choice process determines a winner:

• If a candidate wins 50% of first-preference votes, they’re declared the winner.
• If no one hits that mark, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.
• Then on the ballots of the eliminated candidate, the second preference is then counted as the first choice.
• A new tally is calculated to determine if there’s a winner after this round.
• This process repeats until a candidate wins a majority of the votes.

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The website, RankedVote, provides demos for how the voting system and results work.

Here’s one example using fruit.

“These reforms put voters at the heart of the process, giving them more choice, and encouraging leaders to build a broad base of support. Passing them would be a significant step in the right direction for our democracy,” said Tad Milbourn, founder of RankedVote.

Lisa Rice helped get this measure on Washington, D.C.’s ballot. Initiative 83 would also open DC’s primaries to allow Independents to vote as well.

“We want to make politicians work harder for our vote and we work harder for us,” said Rice, proposer of Initiative 83.

She said when you explain the process of ranked-choice voting, many people understand it.

“Every day adults make decisions by ranking it’s just, it’s so natural that we don’t even think about that,” said Rice. “We automatically rank whether we’re in a restaurant, whether we’re deciding what’s in our closet or whatever so it’s up to us to educate people.”

On Election Day, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Missouri and Washington, D.C. will vote to adopt ranked choice voting or prevent it. Alaska voters will decide if they should repeal their current ranked-choice system.

“When you actually kind of put it to the test with voters themselves, they say they don’t like this system, it simply makes it more confusing, more complex. Let’s go back to the way that we used to do things,” said Jason Snead, Executive Director at the Honest Elections Project.

Snead works for the Honest Elections Project, a group that focuses on electoral integrity. He believes ranked choice voting makes it harder to understand the results of the election.

“It turns the entire voting process into an opaque black box at a time when most voters are demanding greater transparency and greater accountability in the system,” he said.

Snead also believes this is an untested system that can impact who gets elected at the state and federal levels.

“I think that ranked-choice voting has been shown to cost confidence in public elections. it’s been shown to discourage people from voting in those elections,” said Snead.

Currently, ranked-choice voting affects 13 million voters across 50 jurisdictions.

Several states will also vote on whether to shift to primaries where all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, appear on a single ballot.

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