On Ranked-Choice Voting
19th April 2025
North Dakota’s governor recently signed a bill prohibiting ranked-choice voting in the state. That started a conversation and disagreement in this open thread on the subject of ranked-choice voting. In red or blue states, ranked-choice voting often pits people from the same party against each other in the final round, and because people from the opposing party have no candidate, they can vote for the candidate the members of the dominant party don’t want. It also causes confusion and delay in getting final results.
I can see where people invested in the current two-party system might object to it. I don’t see that it is incompatible with democracy. It ensures that whoever is elected is the choice of at least 50% of the voting population, which can’t be said of the current first-past-the-post elections. (Look up the last time the winner of the American Presidency got more than 50% of the vote. Go ahead–I’ll wait.) It doesn’t do anything that runoff elections don’t do, and it means less delay that runoff elections. I really don’t see what the problem is.