In the last few years, more and more cities have started to experiment with ranked choice voting in their municipal elections. This November, there will be a historic number of cities using RCV for their elections -- from mayor to city council to school board. In Utah alone this year, 23 cities chose to opt-in to an RCV pilot program.

In this month’s St. Petersburg municipal elections, Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the liberal Yabloko party, faced a shocking challenge: two other candidates changed their names to Boris Vishevsky in order to confuse voters and split the vote to prevent the original Vishnevsky’s victory.

Canada’s electoral system of single-member parliamentary districts that are won with a simple plurality of votes has repeatedly failed Canadian voters, denying them fair representation at the federal level.

This November, Ann Arbor voters will decide whether to switch to a ranked choice voting (RCV) system for the city’s mayoral and council elections. The Ann Arbor City Council voted 10-1 this week to put the RCV question on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Single-winner districts lead to millions of Americans being underrepresented -- including blue-state Republicans, red-state Democrats, independents, women, and communities of color -- because they are locked into gerrymandered winner-take-all congressional districts that are consistently won by candidates of the plurality group. The Fair Representation Act (FRA) would create proportional multi member districts, solving this problem and improving representation across the political spectrum.

The Voter Choice Act, expected to be reintroduced in Congress later this year, would achieve a powerful goal: help states and cities who want to transition to ranked choice voting (RCV). The bill would empower localities with technical assistance from the federal government during the transition process.

With the passage of ranked choice voting (RCV) legislation in states across the US, the voting system is proving to have wide bipartisan appeal. Today, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill to make it easier for Colorado cities to opt-in to RCV by giving them technical support through their county clerks’ offices

New York City’s 2021 mayoral primary election was the largest ranked choice voting (RCV) election in American history. This is an exciting step for the RCV movement and may contribute to national momentum for advancing RCV proposals.