Ranked Choice Voting

[ccap41]

2 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Right now, states and even cities can institute Ranked Choice voting, but it might only be for certain elections.  Zohran won the primary for NYC mayor partially because of RCV.   But that's only NYC. State level elections are the traditional sort, you pick between two parties or you throw away your vote on a 3rd party. 

In the general election in NYC in the fall, voters are going to get to choose between 4 candidates, the current Mayor Adams (running as an independent this time), former governor Cuomo (was running for the democratic nomination, lost to Zohran, now running as an independent), Zorhan Mamdami who won the RCV democratic primary, and a no-name republican nutjob who will lose.

My position is that all elections, whether for president or dog-catcher, need to be ranked choice and every race should have a box for "none of the above". 

If I interpreted your question wrong and you don't understand how RCV works, Balletopedia has an explainer and video on ranked choice voting. 

Thank you. You didn't necessarily answer it wrong. Buuuut I need one step further back.. what is Ranked Choice Voting? I've never heard that term before. 

[Drew Dowdell]

Keeping this non-political, but still educational on the topic of alternative types of voting.

 

On 8/13/2025 at 5:17 PM, ccap41 said:

Thank you. You didn't necessarily answer it wrong. Buuuut I need one step further back.. what is Ranked Choice Voting? I've never heard that term before. 

 

The basic idea is that no one can get elected without 50% + 1 of the vote. We would no longer have elected officials who win with 43% of the vote.  People who don't get their first choice have their votes moved to their second choice candidate.   That way, people can now safely vote for third-parties without fear of having their vote thrown away and helping elect someone they dislike.   For example, people who voted for Jill Stein may have selected Hillary Clinton as their second choice back in 2016 and that would have produced a very different 10 years for all of us. You don't have to vote for every candidate on the ballot. If there's only 3 candidate you like out of 5, you can vote for just your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick, leaving the others off. 

In the NYC Mayors race, there was an active campaign by supporters of the progressive side to encourage people to not even rank one of the competition. It worked.  Most people picked the two progressive candidates, and their combined vote was well over 50% (56% from memory), making Zorhan Mamdani the winner of the primary.  The two candidates actively campaigned together and said, "Hey, pick both of us and rank which one of us you'd like first". The runner up is highly likely to end up serving under a Mayor Mamdani after the general election making the voters for both candidates happy. 

[ccap41]

1 hour ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Keeping this non-political, but still educational on the topic of alternative types of voting.

 

 

The basic idea is that no one can get elected without 50% + 1 of the vote. We would no longer have elected officials who win with 43% of the vote.  People who don't get their first choice have their votes moved to their second choice candidate.   That way, people can now safely vote for third-parties without fear of having their vote thrown away and helping elect someone they dislike.   For example, people who voted for Jill Stein may have selected Hillary Clinton as their second choice back in 2016 and that would have produced a very different 10 years for all of us. You don't have to vote for every candidate on the ballot. If there's only 3 candidate you like out of 5, you can vote for just your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick, leaving the others off. 

In the NYC Mayors race, there was an active campaign by supporters of the progressive side to encourage people to not even rank one of the competition. It worked.  Most people picked the two progressive candidates, and their combined vote was well over 50% (56% from memory), making Zorhan Mamdani the winner of the primary.  The two candidates actively campaigned together and said, "Hey, pick both of us and rank which one of us you'd like first". The runner up is highly likely to end up serving under a Mayor Mamdani after the general election making the voters for both candidates happy. 

OMG, I get the term "ranked voting" now. After reading this, it's almost silly that i didn't know what it was until now, hahaha. 

[G. David Felt]

This is a very interesting voting that some hate, some love and most see the commonsense approach.