Ranked Choice Voting

At this year's LWVNYS convention, the majority of delegates representing 39 local leagues voted to adopt the following new position statement:

The League of Women Voters of New York State supports the use of ranked-choice voting (a.k.a., instant runoff voting), in primary, general and/or special elections to elect federal, state and/or local officials.  This approach will bring more voices into our political process and ensure outcomes that more accurately reflect the will of the voters. 

 With the adoption of any electoral system, the League believes that education of the voting public is important, and funding for startup and voter education should be allocated. 

What is Ranked Choice Voting?

First, let’s look at how we currently vote in Cortland County. We use a system known as plurality voting where each voter votes for one candidate per office and the candidate with the most votes wins — even if no candidate has a majority (over 50%) of the votes.

In ranked choice voting, instead of voting for just one candidate, you rank the candidates in order of preference.  The votes are counted and if a candidate has more than 50% of the vote, they win. However, if no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the process continues. The candidates with the least votes are eliminated, and if your first choice candidate is eliminated, your vote is moved to your 2nd choice. This process continues until one candidate has at least 51% of the votes.  This is why ranked choice voting is also known as “the instant run-off system.”

This concept can be confusing at first, but a picture — or in this case, a video — is worth a thousand words.  Watching this short example will just take one minute of your time.

Why Does LWVNYS Support Ranked Choice Voting?

We believe that ranked choice voting will bring more voices into our political process and ensure outcomes that more accurately reflect the will of the voters.  Since the winner must have over 50% of the votes, they have broader support, and people, especially those with minority opinions, are more likely to vote for the candidate they truly believe in rather than voting strategically. Other benefits include the elimination of third-party “spoilers,” less negative campaigning since candidates will want to appeal to all potential constituents, and reduced cost since run-off elections are not needed.