RCV is Easy to Use, and Voters Prefer RCV
Cities have held over 500 elections using RCV since 2004, with 20+ million RCV ballots cast. Despite claims that RCV is confusing, voters who have used it overwhelmingly say two things: RCV is easy to understand and RCV is better than single-choice systems (like Sacramento’s).
As of September 2024, fifty-one cities, counties, and states, with over 13 million voters are using RCV.
Voters who use RCV overwhelmingly say RCV is easy to understand, including many first-time RCV voters.
95% of voters – across every ethnic group – in New York City’s 2021 elections found the ballot “simple to complete.” Most said they understood RCV “extremely” or “very” well.
90% of Maine voters said their experience in the June 2018 elections was “excellent” or “good.” Most respondents hadn’t used RCV before.
92% of voters in Minneapolis, which has used RCV since 2009, find it “simple.”
The vast majority of voters in two Utah cities – Payson and Vineyard – took the opportunity to rank candidates for city council in 2019, their first use of RCV.
RCV is well understood across all racial and ethnic communities. There are no differences in RCV cities in how White, Black, and Latinx respondents report understanding RCV. (See Self-reported understanding of ranked-choice voting, by Todd Donovan, Caroline Tolbert, and Kellen Gracey, 2019).
Voters understand RCV better than they understand “traditional” systems, like Sacramento’s. In two surveys of likely voters in cities using RCV, 90% and 89% of respondents said they found the RCV ballot easy to understand. The level of understanding was high across demographic and socioeconomic groups. (See Socioeconomic and demographic perspectives on Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area. Sarah John and Caroline Tolbert, 2015). The percentage of voters in RCV cities who understand RCV at least “somewhat well” (84%) is actually higher than the share of voters in cities who understand their more traditional systems (83%). More respondents (49%) in RCV cities reported understanding RCV extremely or very well than reported understanding the top-two primary extremely or very well (40%). (See Socioeconomic and demographic perspectives on Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area. Sarah John and Caroline Tolbert, 2015).
RCV is a hallmark of modern democracy around the world. Outside the United States, RCV is also used in many other countries, where polling consistently finds higher rates of voter satisfaction and lower rates of polarization when compared with the U.S.
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The evidence is clear: RCV is simple, inclusive, and preferred – easy to understand across socioeconomic and demographic groups. Cities that have it, like it.
The League of Women Voters supports RCV and supports a concerted voter education effort during implementation.