Runoff elections exist to ensure party nominees have broad support among voters. However, this system breaks down in competitive and crowded primary races, and Tuesday’s 2020 Republican Primary in GA 9th District is a timely example of what can go wrong.

This year four states have used #RankedChoiceVoting for their party-run presidential primaries, most recently Kansas—and, in all places, RCV promoted turnout, empowered voters, and guaranteed that no votes were “wasted.”

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, Alaska became the latest state to conduct an election entirely with VBM, joining Colorado, Utah, Hawaii, and Washington. This provides a stark contrast from Wisconsin’s, in which 48,875 votes were wasted.

Washington’s vote-by-mail primary was on March 10th and ballots were accepted if they were postmarked by that date.

We need a voting method which allows voters to indicate backup choices, especially in volatile races with crowded fields such as this one.  

Let’s take a look at the novel way in which RCV was used in Nevada and how it impacted results. 

For the first time, the Nevada caucuses implemented ranked choice voting (RCV) in its successful early voting process—prompting Vox to label RCV a “winner” of the caucuses.

In “Making Sense of the Iowa Debacle,” Michael Brendan Dougherty writes for the conservative-leaning National Review that instant-runoff voting (also known as ranked choice voting) emerged from the Iowa caucuses as a process-winner.

As Nevada prepares to host what many believe may be the last presidential nominating caucuses, Iowans have advice on what Nevada and Iowa might do in the future.

New Hampshire’s presidential primaries certainly ran more smoothly than Iowa’s caucuses, but the results illustrate a pitfall of crowded fields — the “wasted vote”.