There is no reason that all ballot issues with more than yea/nay options shouldn't be ranked-choice. (even "cumulative voting" wherein one can just vote for more than one option is preferable to "vote for one only"). More information from the electorate channeled into their system of representation is always a good thing; (and nearly exactly why the current republican party is the opposite)

"too often, candidates win despite a majority of voters choosing someone else."

This statement would be more compelling if supported by examples of elections in which this happened. As it is, the only example of an election outcome in this entire post is one in which RCV failed miserably, which isn't in any way persuasive.

Given the complete disaster district elections has become for the city I'm wary of making additional changes to the voting system without a defined benefit. NY moved to ranked choice voting in 2019 and this will be the first mayor/council elections that follow that process. Would be interesting to see a follow up post their election to see what impact it had.

@2 the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections both had winners who received fewer votes than the runner up. I'm not well read on smaller elections but just those two make the issue one with consequences that make it worth considering. They also cited at least 4 examples of places with successful RCV systems in the article. Seems like an interesting idea.

@2 @4 -- Yeah, if those elections don't come to mind, you really shouldn't be discussing these ideas. You should be reading Wikipedia, to get even a cursory understanding of American history. This is a basic idea, that would have lead to a President Gore, instead of the disaster that was President Bush. Gore would have known that a crucial part of his support came from the Greens, and he would have been a strong environmentalist (which would have been easy for him).

@3 -- This isn't a new idea. It has been used in many countries and has been very successful. The benefit is quite clear, and rather obvious if you think about it a little bit. Hell, I can think of an example in the upcoming city council race. In position 9 you have Oliver, Thomas and Nelson. If The Stranger endorses Oliver, then she will likely take the progressive vote, while the reactionaries support Nelson. Then, in the general election, Nelson will beat Oliver, because Oliver is viewed as being too radical and self serving (e. g. unless Nelson has a similar poor voting record, expert Oliver's poor voting record to be an issue). So, as a result, we get Nelson, even though she has the support of well under 50%, and isn't the second choice or consensus choice that Thomas is.

This can happen in a three person race, obviously it can happen when there are more (like the mayoral race). The point is, people shouldn't have to be strategic in their vote. If you prefer Oliver, then you should vote for Oliver, instead of voting for Thomas because you think Thomas can beat Nelson, but Oliver can't.

One of the issues in Seattle is that there are so many candidates and once you have more than 5 candidates or so it can become very difficult to rank them effectively. Probably having something approval voting first to limit the number of candidates to say 5 then doing RCV on the remaining seems like a solution.

@5 "if those elections don't come to mind, you really shouldn't be discussing these ideas."

Sorry, I was thinking that the outcome of past electoral college contests had no relevance to state and local elections in Washington, which are based solely on the popular vote. Please share more of your wisdom, you are clearly an expert in this field!

Ranked choice voting gives voters more options, more choice, more say in the matter. It's simply a better, more open method.

Anyone who is against it is either very misinformed about how it works, or is a shill for one of the major political parties. Both the democratic and republican parties are very much against ranked choice voting because they both know they'd lose power if it were implemented. It's like asking the tobacco companies if smoking is bad for you or not.

I wish Americans (right or left) spent a bit more time looking into how other countries conduct elections rather than coming up with their own half-assed solutions mainly out of NIH syndrome.

In many countries, you vote not for a person but for a list. I believe the fundamental problem with local elections in this country is that we have very few elected officials. The Seattle City Hall has 9 elected officials for about 750k inhabitants. Marseille, a French city of 850k inhabitants has a City Council of 101 members. Also, the mayor comes from the municipal majority, which is renewed in full every 6 years. This leads to more stable majorities where the City actually has the power and the time to pass and enact legislation.

Compare it to Seattle where it's all about the candidate ego, what they do with their genitals, what their kids and spouses do, we barely talk about agenda. Worse, the limited number of elected officials means that they have to rely on external lobbyists and they're basically endlessly campaigning. There is a big problem with representation in this country and ranked choice voting, while not a terrible idea, does not solve any of these problems.

Well, it’s a good idea, but just like a lot of “good in theory” ideas, implementation will be…interesting. I guess I don’t have a lot of faith in an electorate that voted for a Supreme Court justice because his name was the same as a news anchor or votes for Tim Eyman initiatives. I just don’t think people will get ranked choice, regardless of the positives.

@8 you say that but it would also require voters to be more informed to make those choices and that doesn't seem likely. In fact in many cases RCV leads to more disenfranchisement. From an article about RCV in San Francisco:

Part of the problem is the way the counting works. As each round of RCV tabulation proceeds, some ballots are declared “exhausted,” as some voters’ remaining choices do not include candidates “still standing” as voters’ other choices are being re-allocated. In some races, the percentage of “exhausted ballots” ranged from 9.6% up to 27.1%.

That positively disenfranchises “exhausted” voters, excluding them in final rounds of an RCV election.

Look at how the process worked in a 2010 race for San Francisco Board of Supervisors (City Council). After 20 rounds of tabulation, there were 9,608 exhausted (discarded) ballots, whereas the winner garnered only 4,321 votes. The victor took fewer than 25% of the votes.

Unless it can be proved to substantially improve voter participation and outcomes I don't see a reason to make any changes.

@13,

The ballots only become "exhausted" because the voter chose not to rank some candidates. As long as you rank everyone, your ballot will never be exhausted.

If you only rank a few, and decide not to rank some others because you feel they'd all be the same to you anyway, then have you really been disenfranchised? You got to put your vote up there and your people didn't win. You didn't select enough back ups, so you're out. We gave you the chance to select back ups but you chose not to. That's not disenfranchisement.

RCV is a better system, hands down. Instead of not being able to vote for, say Bernie Sanders for president because that will only weaken support for the DNC appointed milquetoast candidate Joe Biden, you can cast your first choice for Sanders and your second choice for Biden. Or if you're in the fascist party you can cast your first vote for Hitler and your second for Trump.

RCV gives everyone who's NOT in one of the two current political parties an actual shot at winning.

That's why there's so much anti-RCV hand-wringing out there. The republican party and the democratic party would lose power if it were put in place. You better believe they both spend billions to get their sock puppets out there discrediting it, or saying "we just need more time to research it... let's not change our shitty system just yet!"

It works great and educating people on it is simple. There's simply a lot of special interest cash out there (the dems and repubs) making sure to make it sound as scary and confusing as possible.

@14 I'm not sure that is correct. First your theory relies on having an informed and engaged voting populace. We don't have that and we likely won't in our lifetime. Second, you would still end up with an either/or in the general election unless someone like Bernie runs as an independent. Even then I'm not sure how your scenario plays out. All Repubs vote for their candidate so he finishes in the top two, most Dems vote for Biden and then a greater percentage vote for Bernie but he still loses out to Biden and so his secondary votes move to Biden and he wins. In that scenario the Trumpers would be even more adamant that Trump won the vote. That seems like a recipe for more chaos.

Given the amount of education that would have to be committed to making this work, the cost associated with it and really not a large improvement in the actual outcomes I don't see the point.

@15,
"The voters are too dumb so we shouldn't even try"

Come on. It's not difficult at all. Just pick the person you want to be president. Now imagine that person drops out, who's your second choice. Imagine they drop out too, who's your third. Just keep going till there's no one left. This is not rocket surgery.

Why would you end up with either/or in the general? Any candidate who didn't win the primary can now run as an independent or whatever.

It is LITERALLY giving people more choice. Why would anyone (other than the DNC and the RNC) be against it??

@17 in an engaged society it might be better but that’s not what we have. We have Facebook and Twitter and just plain ignorance. Just by reading the stranger you and I are more informed than 95% of the population. I just think given today’s climate and outrage cycle it would to lead to more problems than it’s worth.

Jesus christ, it's not even that different from the shit voting system that's in place now. If some uninformed and unwilling-to-be-informed mouth breather demands to only be allowed to vote for one candidate and then be shut out of the system then fine. Let their ranked voting choices be shut down. They get their one vote and then they're ignored. For them, it is EXACTLY the same thing as they've already been doing. They aren't being disenfranchised. They aren't being cheated. They are being willfully ignorant. So be it.

It is literally, exactly the same as what these idiots have been doing their whole lives, except you can also pick backups. You don't HAVE to, you just have the option to. Like, what ice cream do you want? Chocolate or vanilla? If I throw strawberry in there too is it gonna rattle you so much to the core that you can't even function anymore? Then maybe you should just stop voting entirely if this is THAT difficult for you to comprehend. We're out of chocolate, would you rather have strawberry or vanilla? I CANNOT HANDLE THIS!!! THIS IS A CHANGE I CANNOT COMPREHEND!!! Jesus you must be kidding me.

And, as I always try to remind, I'm not saying "you" as in YOU personally. Just the general public. Are they really that stupid? This is colossally stupid, by the way. If they want to only vote for Trump/Biden they can STILL do so, this just gives them additional options. And it doesn't lessen their vote. Their vote is STILL #1. Still as powerful as it ever was. It doesn't hurt or alter or lower or demean or change their single vote at all. They are simply throwing away the extra choice they were given. And if that's what they want, I don't get it, but FINE! But why force others to throw away THEIR backups against their wills? That's the DNC and RNC at work there.

@18: "Like, what ice cream do you want? Chocolate or vanilla? If I throw strawberry in there too is it gonna rattle you so much to the core that you can't even function anymore?"

I like chocolate. I also like vanilla. Other than that, I'll pass. If I can do that with ranked voting, fine. I'll pick my top two (or maybe one). But after that, I don't want some voting system to impute my assent if I haven't explicitly given it.

Thank you, "The Stranger," for this very important article. My only complaint is that you don't have it blasted across the top and front page selection -- and on your paper editions too. I've been looking at NYC and their mayoral race with envy BECAUSE they now have ranked choice voting. It's time has arrived - and for Washington State, with Seattle having the unique opportunity to lead the way. I so wish this Seattle mayoral election had RCV. There are a bunch of attractive candidates from the proverbial left and only a few conservatives. Instead of splitting the left and opening the way to the right -- we should be able to rank the left without losing ground. Probably someone from the left will prevail, anyway, but it's still nice to feel free to vote your conscience and not have to choose a candidate solely because your arm is twisted behind your back - or you basically feel blackmailed. Plus, what we do at the local level will help make that happen in larger elections, as well. I am a YUGE supporter of ranked choice voting.

@21 I read, if Seattle had RCV in the last mayoral election, Moon might have won instead. I don't know how accurate the analysis was (it was related to Nikitta Oliver's numbers), but I would have preferred Moon and I think Seattle could have spared itself a lot of problems if she had won, instead.

@22 "a lot of problems" -- or some, at least.

@20 All of the RCV systems I've seen thus far implemented in the U.S. do NOT compel you to fill in other choices. If you only want to vote for one person, that's fine. I haven't read what NYC's system is, but i assume it similarly allows you to vote for just one or two or how many - it's up to you. I've read there are, however, RCV systems that invalidate your vote if you don't fill in every candidate "somewhere" on your list of preferences, and I strongly agree that this kind of RCV system isn't fair to the voter. For example, I could NOT put Donald Trump (as he is, today) anywhere on a ballot, even as "my last preference" - and just because his name is there (it would be like forcing me to eat something REALLY bad). But I don't think this is an issue in the RCV systems proposed anywhere in the U.S. (someone feel free to correct me, if that's the case anywhere).