The power to vote is a fundamental right. It is established in the Bill of Rights and reaffirmed by multiple landmark Supreme Court cases, including Baker v Carr, which establishes the principle of “one person, one vote.” However, this principle has come under threat with different states and municipalities considering the adoption of ranked-choice voting. 

Ranked-choice voting is a system in which voters create a preferential ranking of the candidates, beginning with their first choice before selecting all the way down to their last option. After their ballot has been cast, their rankings are then compared to other voters. The candidate with the lowest amount of first-rank votes is then removed from the race, meaning voters’ number one choice could be eliminated. But it doesn’t stop there. As candidates are removed and your rankings are affected, a ballots’ relative weight changes, and a voter’s third or fourth choice candidate could end up being who your final vote is cast for. Ranked voting is, evidently, a far more complicated system than the current single choice system in place. 

While ranked choice voting allows for citizens to provide more detail into who they would like to see elected, in the end, it counteracts that by possibly failing to represent their opinions. The argument has been made that ranked-choice voting would reduce costs associated with elections, but the initial costs associated with the switch are substantial and potentially limiting.

Furthermore, ranked-choice voting can lead to a substantial barrier, which infringes on some people’s access to voting. The United States is already known for low voter turn out and participation. While limited information on candidates in an election is not the sole reason that voter turnout in the U.S. is low, it is certainly a significantly limiting factor. Ranked voting would just worsen voter fatigue, which is when a voter feels disengaged from the elections they are voting in. Now more than ever, it is important that we lessen barriers to voting and work to increase voter participation, something that ranked-choice voting simply does not do.

The most logical argument against ranked-choice voting is the constitutionality behind its conception. While technically there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that prohibits ranked-choice voting, the argument against it stems from the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. While it has not been directly struck down in any courts, it was vetoed by former California governor Gavin Newsom in 2019. His reasoning stemmed from wanting to avoid confusion amongst voters. 

Confusion is not a factor to overlook. According to a large-scale empirical study in 2025, ranked ballots were 10 times more likely to be rejected for improper marks than standard ballots.

On April 10, President Donald Trump called for repeal of the use of ranked-choice voting in Alaska. The reasoning being that Alaskans deserve “fair elections.” While elections under ranked-choice voting are not inherently unfair, they are not in line with the rest of states for federal elections. While the Tenth Amendment guarantees that states are given all powers not directly allotted to the federal government, voting should remain as close to congruent across states. 

Maine is able to recognize the limits of ranked-choice voting, despite using the system for congressional elections, the Maine Supreme Court recently decided that it went against the Maine constitution to extend ranked-choice voting to general elections. 

While ranked choice voting solves some issues, such as the impact of third parties on elections, it gives rise to a whole new array of others, arguably worse than the original shortcomings at hand.

Currently, in 49 American jurisdictions, ranked-choice voting is used in public elections, which encompasses nearly 14 million voters, according to FairVote. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank several candidates for office in order of their preference rather than simply picking one candidate. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then the candidate who receives the least percentage of the overall vote is eliminated. The votes of the individuals who ranked the eliminated candidate first have their vote moved to their second-ranked choice. This process repeats itself until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote, and that candidate becomes the winner of the election.

The U.S. should adopt ranked-choice voting in all elections, as it would eliminate unnecessary runoff elections, improve representation, and decrease third-party election interference. By giving voters more options to choose from, and more ways to choose such options, ranked-choice voting eliminates the binary system that has plagued our elections, thus improving our representative democracy.

First of all, the ranked-choice voting system would eliminate runoff elections. In several areas throughout the country, runoff elections occur when a candidate doesn’t receive the majority of the vote. However, with a ranked-choice voting system, there is no need for runoffs because a candidate always ends up with a majority vote. When the counting process is finished, the rankings allow for votes to eventually result in a majority, thus decreasing the delays and extra costs caused by runoff elections.

Additionally, ranked-choice voting results in increased representation in elections. Instead of being forced to choose one candidate to represent their vote, citizens can now distribute their vote among candidates, allowing them to give their true opinion on who they would want in office the most and who they would want in office the least. This allows elections to represent the views of the electorate much better than the current system, while also opening the door to more candidates running in an election. In fact, findings from Electoral Studies showed that when ranked-choice voting is implemented, candidates of color receive larger shares of votes because there is more diversity in elections with more candidates.

Ranked-choice voting also reduces the impact that third parties have on elections, as according to a study by FairVote. Currently, when individuals vote for third parties, the two main candidates running lose valuable votes from the center, which can potentially cost them the election in extremely important moments. However, in ranked-choice voting, people who vote for third parties simply have their vote redistributed to their second choice when the third party is eliminated, thus reducing this effect on vital elections throughout the country.

Currently, the U.S. election system is also extremely polarized and binary, as the country is split between two Republican or Democrat-aligned candidates in almost every election. However, by adopting ranked-choice voting, voters are no longer stuck to voting solely along party lines or voting to keep the other candidate out of office; they are placing their vote based on their actual opinion of candidates. By implementing rank-choiced voting, the problem of political polarization can be drastically reduced.

Many individuals argue that adopting ranked-choice voting is harmful because it takes too much time and confuses voters, thus setting a barrier to voting. However, there’s no actual evidence of this being true, and almost all evidence of delays in elections are simply caused by outside factors, not the ranked-choice voting system. For example, several individuals cite election delays in Alaska and New York as evidence of this argument, but RanktheVoteNYC and The Center for Democracy & Technology show that delays in these elections were caused by the state governments counting absentee and affidavit ballots.

Instead, experts from FairVote find that computational tabulations can result in instantaneous results in an election. With elections becoming more and more digitalized and technology-driven, ranked-choice voting would have no effect on election times, as results can be calculated almost instantly with the data in hand. On top of this, if the U.S. were to establish ranked-choice voting nationwide, it may even lead to quicker election times as it would completely eliminate primary and runoff elections. 

Ranked choice voting is a much better and more democratic option for our elections because it has the potential to significantly limit the impact of the two party system and political parties as a whole which have become so polarizing and divisive.