Ranked choice voting sounded like a fix. Rank your candidates, the spoiler effect disappears, everyone walks away happier. That's how it was sold, anyway https://www.yesendrcv.com/.
As it happens a lot of voters aren't sold on it. Campaigns branded "Yes End RCV" have been cropping up in states and cities that rolled out ranked choice voting, and they're picking up steam. Not because people dislike voting. Because people hate confusion.
What people don't always realize about ranked choice voting: it asks a lot of the average voter. Rank five, six, sometimes ten candidates in order of preference? Most people show up to vote for a single candidate. Maybe two, if there's a tight primary. Expecting your grandmother to rank a school board race like she's drafting a fantasy football roster is a lot to ask.
Then there's the counting. RCV elections can take days to resolve. Anchorage learned this firsthand. Votes are cycled through multiple rounds of elimination, and by round four, even people tracking the results in real time are lost. Clarity suffers when the process itself feels like a magic trick.
Money is a factor as well. Updated voting equipment, poll worker training, public education efforts explaining a system half the electorate has never used — it all adds up. Small counties especially bear the brunt of it.
Those in favor of ranked choice voting will point out it cuts down on attack ads and rewards broader coalition-building. It's a legitimate claim. Candidates courting second-choice votes have less incentive to trash their opponents outright. It's a genuine benefit, and it's worth admitting even if you're skeptical of the whole system.
But the "Yes End RCV" crowd argue the trade-off isn't worth it. Easier ballots. Quicker outcomes. Fewer invalid ballots from people who filled out the ranking wrong. They point to "exhausted" ballots — votes that get tossed because a voter didn't rank enough candidates — as proof the system quietly disenfranchises people who believed their vote counted all the way through.
Maine went one direction. Alaska has wrestled with repeal efforts more than once. Massachusetts flatly voted it down back in 2020. There's no consensus across the country, and honestly, there may never be one.
What's clear is this isn't a niche complaint anymore. It's appearing in signature drives, ballot initiatives, state legislature debates. Whatever side of the fence you're on, the debate over how we count votes is nowhere near resolved, and "Yes End RCV" is one loud voice in a conversation that's far from over.