The Past, Present, & Future of Ranked-Choice Voting in the Big Apple

This article, published on Radical x Change, discusses how rank choice voting will change the electoral scene in New. York City, citing RepresentWomen's RCV research and data. Read an excerpt below:

Compared to plurality voting where you select only one candidate, ranked-choice has both political and practical advantages. In theory, the system discourages candidates from smearing each other in favor of coalition-building, assuming they want to appeal to the same group of voters to rank them. During the NYC mayoral race you saw this strategy between Andrew Yang and Garcia, who asked their respective supporters to rank them in succession. In addition, ranked-choice gives more heft to non-male and minority candidates as well as candidates from less conventional ideological backgrounds. Even though they might lack establishment backing, more people would consider ranking them to increase the likelihood that their votes have an impact. According to the organization RepresentWomen, 46% of mayors in the United States who have been elected by ranked-choice are women; 31% of mayors elected this way are people of color.

The main practical advantage of this system is that it’s less time-consuming for everyone involved. In the past in NYC, when a multiplicity of mayoral hopefuls were in the race and none of them won over half the vote, the top two headed for a run-off. That meant those candidates had to prolong their campaigns, voters needed to return to the polls, and election workers had to tally results all over again. “RCV is already paying immediate dividends,” the city’s Public Advocate Jumaane Williams recently tweeted. “We’re now immediately spared several low turnout run-off elections and long recounts in too close to call races saving millions of dollars and lots time [sic].”

Read the full article here.

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