In this report, we quantify how well voters have interacted with this form of an RCV ballot over the 68 RCV elections that took place in San Francisco from 2004-2016. The report breaks contests down into categories based on how competitive they were and analyzes the rates at which voters ranked candidates; the rates at which they skipped the contest entirely; and two types of voter errors (skipped rankings and overvotes). It measures how RCV performs in San Francisco on these and other metrics compared to non-RCV contests in the city. We find that San Francisco voters have generally made effective use of this form of an RCV ballot despite its limitations, especially compared to the prior system based on two-round runoffs.

In this short report, FairVote assesses the election rates of people of color in the California Bay Area before and after the adoption of ranked choice voting. We show that people of color hold office at a higher rate under ranked choice voting than under the prior system. We also demonstrate that people of color win office more often since the adoption of ranked choice voting across three different ways of categorizing districts: plurality-minority (districts where one ethnic minority group is the largest in the district); white-plurality (districts where ethnic minority groups are collectively in the majority, but whites are the largest single group); and white-majority.

In Laboratories of Democracy, a report co-authored by FairVote legal staff and the Campaign Legal Center, we demonstrate that impact litigation with the goal of improving democracy and elections can and should be brought in state courts under state law.

In Proportional Representation in New York City, 1936-1947 FairVote explores the buildup to and outcomes of multi-winner ranked choice voting (RCV) also know as single transferable vote (STV) on the New York City Council during the 10 year period between implementation and repeal. 

In Monopoly Politics 2018 FairVote explores the extent, causes and remedies to the lack of competition and partisan fairness in U.S. House elections and the increasing polarization of members elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Fair Representation Act report outlines how multi-winner ranked choice voting would transform the U.S. House of Representatives.

Redistricting Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives is a series of six reports exploring trends in competition, partisan fairness and polarization in states that have reformed their redistricting practices.

Federal Primary Election Runoffs and Voter Turnout Decline analyzes turnout data for the 190 primary runoff elections held between 1994 and 2016. The report finds that primary runoff elections are plagued by significant declines in turnout that dilute the representative nature of the system. The report examines the effect of the time delay between elections on turnout decline. Finally, the report recommends alternative runoff systems such as instant runoff voting to eliminate the turnout decline problem while preserving the benefits to representation of runoffs.