1. Ranked Choice Voting
2. Details about Ranked Choice Voting
3. Data on Ranked Choice Voting
4. Voter Understanding and Support

Voter Understanding and Support

Voter support and understanding

Voter understanding of and support for RCV is strong. For democracy — and RCV — to flourish, voters must understand their electoral system and how to interact with a ranked ballot, and they must be able to cast a meaningful vote for a candidate of their choice. This section examines how well voters understand RCV and their level of satisfaction with it.

Voter support

• In 2021, 77% of voters surveyed by Rank the Vote NYC in the New York City primaries supported using RCV for future local elections.
  
  

• In 2018, 61% of voters in Maine’s general election expressed support for keeping or expanding RCV after using it for the first time.
  
  

• In 2018, 94% of Santa Fe voters reported feeling “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their first use of RCV.
  
  

• In 2017, 66% of voters in Minneapolis’ municipal elections expressed continued support for the use of RCV. 

Find additional details in FairVote’s Exit Surveys: Voters Evaluate Ranked Choice Voting.

 

• RCV may be an acquired taste, according to two 2021 survey experiments (here and here). Researchers found that most survey respondents said they prefer single-choice voting to RCV, but one study also found that those who have used RCV are more positive towards it, suggesting the presence of a status quo bias. The findings underscore the benefits of a voter education initiative with RCV, because voters in real-world RCV elections report that they like RCV and prefer it over their prior voting method, even after using RCV just one time. 
  • Public Perceptions of Alternative Voting Systems: Results from a National Survey Experiment, by David Kimball and Joseph Anthony. (April 2021). 
  • Choosing to Vote as Usual by Andre Blais, Carolina Plescia, and Semra Sevi. (February 2021).

 

• Multiparty proportional or ranked-choice systems can offer the benefits of a small winner-loser gap and an absence of interparty animosity, according to a 2021 study based on a large-scale behavioral game. The study finds that certain institutions, namely those based on proportional representation and RCV, as well as multiparty arrangements, decrease “perceived legitimacy gap”, meaning election winners and losers are in closer agreement that the election is legitimate. 
  • Electoral Systems and Political Attitudes: Experimental Evidence by Sean Fischer, Amber Lee, and Yphtach Lelkes. (May 2021).

 

Voter Understanding of RCV

Understanding how to vote, as well as how individual results are used to determine the winner, is an important component of voter empowerment. This section focuses on self-reported understanding through polling. For research on how voters interact with the ranked ballot in practice, such as data on undervotes, overvotes, and number of rankings used, see Data on RCV:  Ballot Use.

• Maine voters embraced RCV and understood the ballot in their first two RCV election cycles, according to a 2021 analysis. 
  • Most voters took advantage of the opportunity to rank candidates.
  • The proportions of blank ballots were the same as in Maine’s prior non-RCV election. 
  • Many voters used multiple rankings to cross party lines.
  • An analysis of ranked choice voting in Maine, by Matt Germer (2021).

 

• Nearly all (95%) voters — across every ethnic group — in the New York City's 2021 primary elections found the ballot “simple to complete.” Most said they understood RCV “extremely” or “very” well.  
  
  

• Nearly all (90%) Maine voters said their experience with RCV in the state’s June 2018 primary elections was “excellent” or “good.” Most respondents hadn’t used RCV before.
  
  

• Voters in Santa Fe, New Mexico, overwhelmingly (more than 67% of respondents) reported they were not confused by their ballot after their first RCV election.
  
  

• Ninety-two percent 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 — ranked candidates for city council races in 2019, even though it was their first use of RCV.
  
  

• In two surveys in 2013 and 2014 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. Additionally, self-reported understanding of RCV compares favorably to understanding of other election methods.
  
  
  • The percentage of voters in RCV cities who understood RCV at least “somewhat well” (84%) was roughly equivalent to the share of voters in plurality cities who understood plurality (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%).
    
    Sarah John and Caroline Tolbert April (2015).Socioeconomic and demographic perspectives on Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area.
    
    

• There are no differences in RCV cities in how White, Black, and Latino respondents reported understanding RCV in a 2019 study. Find highlights from the study here. Women and Asian Americans tended to report lower levels of understanding of election systems in general, including single-choice plurality and the top-two system.
  • Self‐reported understanding of ranked‐choice voting, by Donovan, T., Tolbert, C., & Gracey, K. April (2019).

 

• Older voters were less likely to leave blank rankings on their ballots, but were slightly more likely to report difficulty with the ranked ballot according to a 2021 study. No significant relationships were found across racial and ethnic groups, and only weak evidence linked socioeconomic status to blank rankings. The findings support previous evidence of older voters reporting difficulty but challenge research that assumes difficulty leads to undervoting and that racial and ethnic groups are disadvantaged by RCV.
  • Demographic disparities using ranked choice voting? Ranking difficulty, under-voting, and the 2020 Democratic Primary, by Joseph Coll. (June 2021). 

 

Additional reading: 

• Ranked choice voting and civility: New evidence from American cities, by Andrew Douglas April (2014).
• Experiments in Election Reform: Voter Perceptions of Campaigns Under Ranked Choice Voting vs. Plurality Voting, by Caroline Tolbert March (2014).