Could ranked-choice voting take the poison out of politics?

Alaska and Maine use ranked choice voting in elections.

Four other states could soon join them.

Could ranked-choice voting take some of the poison out of politics?

Today, On Point: We learn why more states are considering ranked-choice voting.

Liz Ruskin, political reporter for Alaska Public Media.

Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, an organization that advocates for ranked choice voting.

Phil Izon, director of Alaskans for Honest Elections, a group seeking to repeal Alaska's ranked choice voting system.

Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America, a left-leaning think tank.

Rachael Cobb, chair and associate professor of political science and legal studies at Suffolk University.

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Ranked choice voting. Alaska and Maine already use the system in presidential primaries.

EVE FULLERTON: We voted it in after a very right-wing Republican won with only 38% of the vote in our blue state. If you vote red and live in a red state, you're going to love it. If you vote red and live in a blue state, you may hate it. And if you vote blue and live in a red state, you will hate it. If you live in a purple state, it's very unpredictable.

CHAKRABARTI: If you can keep track of the colors, On Point listener Eve Fullerton in Maine ends up saying she's very happy with ranked choice voting. And here's Mike Koomby in Anchorage, Alaska.

MIKE KOOMBY: Having voted in elections for almost 50 years here in Alaska, I've watched as the party extremes are the ones who were nominated. And those are the choices that we get in the general election. In 2022, my first choice won in one race, and my second choice won in the other race, but in both races extreme candidates were eliminated. Ranked choice voting allowed voters in Alaska to choose whether they preferred the extremes or not. And as a result, it was a very refreshing change.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, at least four other states, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and Idaho, plus Washington D.C. are considering switching their election systems to ranked choice voting.

So today we want to look at what's behind that push. And could ranked choice voting truly take some of the poison out of U.S. politics? Now I know most of you listening out there probably want us to start with, what exactly is ranked choice voting and how does it work? I promise that we will get to those explainers shortly. But we're going to actually start with the story in Alaska. Because life is just in a permanent state of flux, and things may be changing there.

Even though advocates think that ranked choice voting is a major move forward for representative democracy, there are other advocates who think it's not, and they are pushing back against ranked choice voting in the state.

So Liz Ruskin joins us now. She's a political reporter for Alaska Public Media, and she has maybe the longest commute of any journalist I know, because she's in Washington D.C. today. Liz, welcome to On Point.

LIZ RUSKIN: Hi Meghna, thank you.

CHAKRABARTI: So first of all, tell us very quickly about the history of ranked choice voting in Alaska. When was it implemented and why?

RUSKIN: Voters adopted it in Alaska in 2020, by ballot measure. And the author is a Anchorage attorney who had worked for moderate Republicans, including our U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. He was trying to encourage moderation, and Senator Murkowski is among the obvious beneficiaries of this new system.

CHAKRABARTI: And how was what was going on in Alaska politics, that gave rise to this desire to encourage moderation there?

RUSKIN: We had a semi closed Republican primary. And as partisan primaries work, it tended to elect far-right candidates or candidates who were office holders who were afraid to show moderation. Because they had to clear the Republican, and most cases clear the Republican primary. They were afraid of being primaried.

We had a budget crisis. And especially, at least the author of the ballot measure, to install ranked choice voting. He said that he had heard so many times that Republican legislators were afraid of compromising on this budget crisis, because they'd be primaried.

CHAKRABARTI: Huh. Okay. Then, just to be clear, ranked choice voting was implemented after Alaska voters passed it, right? Because it was a ballot measure for voters.

RUSKIN: And the ballot measure does several things, and it just barely passed in 2020.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so it's in place now.

We'll talk in a minute about efforts to actually remove it from Alaska's system of elections, but I'm wondering if we can get a little bit of analysis on how it's worked so far, because the idea was that it would make it easier for less extreme candidates to run, I'm wondering what folks think of the recent race between former Governor, excuse me, Sarah Palin and now Congresswoman Mary Peltola in Alaska.

RUSKIN: Right. And one of the important things to notice is that ranked choice voting is different wherever it's adopted. In the preview clip, you had someone talking about ranking six or seven or eight candidates. We don't have that. We don't rank in the primary. We just pick one candidate in the primary. And the top four advance to the general ballot.

So that is important because ranked choice voting is very different depending on intricacies like that.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Is it a closed primary or open primary in Alaska?

RUSKIN: In Alaska now, through this ballot measure, it's open. All of the candidates appear on one ballot and the top four, regardless of party, move up to the general.

CHAKRABARTI: Ah, okay. So in the primary, voters go in and they pick one, but then the top four advance, and then in the general, people can rank them.

RUSKIN: Exactly. I believe in one of your previews, you said that Alaska had a ranked choice presidential primary. We didn't. It was, yeah.

We didn't have that.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, my apologies for that.

RUSKIN: That's okay, no problem. When I talk, when I try to sound intelligent about Maine's system, I don't really bother. Because I'm an Alaska expert.

CHAKRABARTI: (LAUGHS)

RUSKIN: Anything I say about Maine is pure conjecture.

CHAKRABARTI: You're being very gracious. We need to get our facts right here.

So I'm a little, feeling a little down that we didn't get that. But it's better to be corrected than to persist in ignorance. So let's continue here. I just want to hear quickly what you think about whether ranked choice voting had an impact on that race between Palin and Peltola.

RUSKIN: Oh. Absolutely. And one of the biggest, I know this is not as sexy as ranked choice voting, but one of the biggest changes for us, far outweighing the other, is that we have this open primary and that has proved really different. So how Mary Peltola, a unknown Democrat beat one of the, probably the most famous Alaskan who ever existed, Sarah Palin, in a red state, is just pretty interesting.

First of all, let's not ignore the candidates. Mary Peltola was unknown statewide, but she proved to be very charismatic, ran a positive race. People like her and people like that she's the first Alaska Native member of Congress. We had a special election with only three candidates.

Usually, we have four for a general, but we had three and Mary Peltola ended up being the top finisher with 40% of the votes. And in part, that's because there were two Republicans also, and they split the rest of the votes. Sarah Palin got just over 30% of the remaining ballots.

And sorry, of the ballots, and another Republican named Nick Begich finished third with just under 30%. So Begich was eliminated first, and his ballots were redistributed according to how his voters chose, how they voted for their second choice. And it's really interesting, I think, to see what those votes mean voters did with their ballots.

Because I think it says a lot about ranked choice voting. ... He's a Republican. And if his voters really just wanted to elect a Republican, ranked choice voting would have allowed them to deliver this race to Sarah Palin and I would be now in Washington covering Congresswoman Palin, but that's not what they did.

About half of his voters chose Sarah Palin as their second choice. And that wasn't enough. Because a significant number of those voters chose Peltola, the Democrat, as their second choice.

CHAKRABARTI: So there we can see how actually dynamic voters' minds are when they go into the ballot, into the voting booth.

And that's reflected in the fact that they could rank their choices. But now I see, Liz, that there is a considerable effort underway from some Alaskans to actually overturn or repeal ranked choice voting in the state. And another question may be put before voters about that. Why? Who's got a resistance to this new form of elections?

RUSKIN: Conservatives absolutely hate it. And they, among other things, they were really looking forward to punishing Senator Murkowski for voting to impeach, to convict Donald Trump on his second impeachment. And he had vowed that he would go to her state and primary her.

They had no closed primary to oust her. All she had to do was get in the top four to win the primary. And that was easy for her. She did clear that bar, and then there was ranked choice voting. So conservatives were denied an opportunity to punish Senator Murkowski as they wanted to, and then also that's just an example of what losing the closed Republican, semi closed Republican primary does. And then also this is a strange time to be looking at innovations in voting.

Because anybody who's inclined to distrust voting by mail or early voting, they're not going to like the idea of ranked choice. And so you do hear in the state, a lot of conservatives fanning the flames of suspicion around ranked choice voting and saying that it's not right. So there's now a petition that's likely to, it like looks like it succeeded in getting on the ballot for November to repeal both ranked choice voting and the open primary, back to the semi closed.

CHAKRABARTI: Wow. Okay. Actually, we talked to someone behind the push to repeal ranked choice voting in Alaska. His concerns mirror concerns of others across the nation. So we'll hear a little bit about that later as we continue our conversation. So Liz Ruskin, political reporter for Alaska Public Media. Thank you so much for getting us started today.

RUSKIN: Thank you.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today we're talking about ranked choice voting. Now, it's an idea that's been around for a long time. Somewhat recently, two American states adopted it, Alaska and Maine. But we're talking about it today because now at least four other states and Washington, D.C. are considering adopting some form of ranked choice voting in their elections.

So we want to ask why and figure out what difference it might make in American politics. But first, let's listen to a couple of On Point listeners in the states that have ranked choice voting in place for now. This is Eileen Purdy.

She listens in Portland, Maine. And she says she noticed not just a change in politics, but a change in how candidates behaved once her city implemented ranked choice voting.

I went to a number of debates, supposedly called debates, but they weren't debates after that happened. They were all nice to each other, didn't dig each other, it's because they wanted your second vote or your second place or your third place.

I think it's wonderful. I can see some people being confused, but get with it.

CHAKRABARTI: And this is Bill Whitty in Fairbanks, Alaska. He says he likes that with ranked choice voting, it feels like a greater proportion of the electorate is represented.

Sometimes if I'm in a ranked choice voting situation, my second choice wins, and it forces me to allow the possibility that my candidate will not win.

And there will be a future after the election. If my guy doesn't win, where am I left? If I have my second-choice candidate won, I'm still part of the process.

CHAKRABARTI: Let's turn to Deb Otis now. She's Director of Research and Policy at FairVote. It's an organization advocating for ranked choice voting across the United States.

Deb, welcome to On Point.

DEB OTIS: Hi, Meghna. Thanks for having me here.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so I hate breaking promises to listeners, so I'm going to make good on mine that I made at the top of the show. We now need the explainer. What is ranked choice voting?

OTIS: Ranked choice voting just means voters have the option to rank their candidates on the ballot.

So when you go in to vote, instead of picking one, you'll have an option on your ballot to fill in who's your first choice, who's your second choice, third choice, and so on. This means if your top choice doesn't win, if your top choice gets eliminated, your vote stays in play and your voice is still heard.

The goal here is to elect a majority winner. That means a person with more than half of the support. In ranked choice voting, if nobody has a majority of first choices, then they eliminate the last place candidate, just like a runoff, where a last place candidate doesn't make it to the final round of the runoff.

People who voted for that candidate have their ballot count for their next choice, who is still active in the race. That happens until you get your majority winner. You get more people participating in that result.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so let's use a concrete example here, okay? And forgive me, because it's going to use comic book characters. Because I don't want to name any actual politicians.

Deb, so say I'm going into the voting booth, and before me are the choices of Wonder Woman, Spider Man, and Batman, okay? And I'm definitely all in on Wonder Woman. Batman, he's a little too dark. And view's life is a little too fatalistic for me. He's not on my list.

But Spider Man, I like his moxie and the fact that he can stick to buildings. So he's my second choice. Do I have to actually rank all of them or just the ones that I want to throw my support behind?

OTIS: You can rank as many or as few as you like. And so since Wonder Woman's your favorite, you'd be fine just casting a ballot for Wonder Woman and leaving it at that.

But if Wonder Woman doesn't end up getting enough support, if Wonder Woman gets eliminated, that would be a tragedy. But if it happens, you might hope that your ballot would still count for one of the two finalists, so that your voice is still heard in that final round. And so it can give your vote more power if you go ahead and rank at least one of either Spider Man and Batman.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So let's say no one gets the majority in the first round. And my heart breaks because Wonder Woman is out of the race. Women, once again, kept out of the highest office in the land, but look I'm all in on Spider Man too, because again just love the fact that science is a big part of his story.

So then there'd be, the runoff would be between, the automatic runoff would be between these two candidates, and then, it gets to be nearly statistically impossible for there to be a perfect 50-50 split. Is that the idea?

OTIS: Sure. Just like in choose one elections, a real tie is vanishingly rare.

And those Wonder Woman folks would have their ballot count for their second choice.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, got it. So that's how it works. Now stepping away from the superhero analogy, sadly. You heard from Liz Ruskin at the beginning of the show hour. That in Alaska, they only use ranked choice voting in their generals, not so much in their primaries.

Can you talk about, like, states can implement it however they want. Could you only have ranked choice voting in the primary and not in the general election?

OTIS: Absolutely. Some places have experimented with just ranked choice voting in primaries, some just in the general election, and some in both.

I think it has different benefits in different elections, but it can offer something good for all of them. When you use it in primaries, it helps voters navigate a crowded field. We often have really crowded fields, like consider presidential primaries. You might see a dozen candidates from one party.

Voters tend to have strong opinions about these candidates. We know, oh, we'd like any of these two. We really don't want these two. And we'd be fine with any of these in the middle. We need that option to parse a really crowded field. So that's what it brings to primaries, helps voters with crowded fields and helps the party pick a strong nominee.

But if you use it in general elections, it helps deal with the questions of spoiler candidates. Think about the presidential general election that's coming up really soon. We're going to have two major party nominees on the ballot, but we're also likely to see a number of independent and third-party candidates.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay.

OTIS: Voters in Alaska will not have to do the strategic voting. They just get to ranked honestly. Voters in some other states are going to have to do some tough math.

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting. Okay. So that gets us to one of the first and probably most potent criticisms of ranked choice voting. And that is a lot of people say, it's confusing for voters. Because it's just not as simple and direct as you just choose the person that you're most supportive of and that's it, you're done.

You actually have to think through how you're going to ranked your choices. And I have to say, that's actually one of the main arguments that folks in Alaska are putting forward to voters, in their efforts to repeal ranked choice voting there. Just listen with me for a second Deb, because we talked to Phillip Izon.

He's one of the people working for the repeal and he leads the group Alaskans for Honest Elections. And he said his inspiration for trying to undo ranked choice voting in Alaska was when his grandfather called him and said he did not understand how to mark his new ballot. And Izon says the state should have spent a lot more money educating people on the new system.

PHIL IZON: We have to go back to our schoolchildren and 2nd; 3rd grade all the way up through high school to teach them about ranked choice voting before implementing this. You can't go just, “Oh, here's a new system.” That doesn't work like that.

You got to go back and you got to spend 20, 30 years educating people about the system before you can change things like this. Yeah, go to the DMV at the minimum and set up like, every time you get your license changed, you have to take like a ranked choice voting test. So that way you know how ranked choice voting works. The state and everyone know that you are like an educated citizen.

CHAKRABARTI: So that's Phillip Izon. He's a head of Alaskans for Honest Elections.

And just to throw this in there, we did hear from an Alaskan listener. Her name is Judy Miller. And she was thinking directly of Izon's attempts to repeal ranked choice voting when she said this.

JUDY MILLER: It's very simple to vote. It's almost embarrassing to hear proponents of HB4 say ranked choice voting is too difficult or confusing, or just too hard. That's ridiculous. I welcome getting out of the grip of a closed primary vise limiting my choices.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, Deb, so that's Judy Miller's personal opinion, but give me your analysis of the specific issues that Phillip Izon brings up. That first of all, we already have a challenge of voters struggling to understand some of the ballot measures. Or the things that candidates are saying, and perhaps retreating into a more simplistic point of view when it comes to how they're going to cast their votes because things can get so overwhelming.

What do you think of his response?  Of like, well we need to actually help voters by educating them on how the system works first.

OTIS: I'm glad that Mr. Izon brought up educating school children on this. To go back to the superhero analogy, if you ask a school aged child, who's your favorite superhero? You're not getting a one superhero.

You're getting a ranked list. Here's my first favorite. Here's my second favorite. Children understand how to do this. We, as adults, rank things every day. I do think voter education is important and Alaska did do voter education around this bill. Around the implementation of ranked choice voting. And they will continue to do overwhelmingly, we're seeing voters say that they understand ranked choice voting. And especially once they've used it, they say they like it and they want to keep it. We see low ballot error rate, and we see most voters choosing to rank candidates. 70% of voters are ranking multiple choices on their ballot.

And those who don't are overwhelmingly saying in surveys, the reason is because I only liked one, I didn't want my ballot to count for anyone else. That's fine. That doesn't mean they didn't understand it. That means that's just their valid voter expression of only liking one candidate.

CHAKRABARTI: Mr. Izon mentioned something here in that clip that we just played, which actually raises a lot of questions in my mind. He says regarding education, what he would prefer is that people go to the DMV. And that every time they get their licenses renewed, quote, you have to take a ranked choice voting test.

So that way, you know how it works and the state and everyone knows that you're an educated citizen. Now, one way to read that might be, he's advocating for a kind of poll test. In terms of the pushback that you've heard from across the country, from people opposed to ranked choice voting, is there, I'll just go as far as to say this. Is there a relationship between people who oppose it and those who are just resistant to expanding the voting franchise in general in this country?

OTIS: I strongly disagree with the idea of any kind of test to allow people to vote. I think that has a dangerous history in our country, and I don't think we need it. Jurisdictions are determining whether people understand ranked choice voting by conducting surveys and asking them. I think that's a much better way to collect the data, than having poll tests that would prevent people from voting.

As far as where the opposition comes from, I think it is certainly tied to a certain sore loser aspect. When we look to the repeal campaign in Alaska, I think this is being driven by some folks who lost races up there. Like Sarah Palin and Kelly Tshibaka, who lost against Lisa Murkowski for Senate and their allies.

I think there is a natural tendency maybe to associate a system with an outcome. When in fact, the system is just getting outcomes that are supported by more voters. It is not the ranked choice voting that caused these losses. It was these candidates simply didn't get enough support from the voters.

CHAKRABARTI: Now I want to talk for a second about why we have this interesting group of states that's considering changing their election systems to ranked choice voting. I nod my head to Washington, D.C., which is also considering it as well. But the other major jurisdictions are Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, and Colorado.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was that they're all Western states. Is there something to that?

OTIS: I think we've seen a few adoptions in East Coast states over the last several years, so it's time for some West Coast states to start joining in addition to Alaska, so I'm thrilled to see this.

CHAKRABARTI: Other than, so help educate me, other than Maine, what are the East Coast states that have ranked choice voting?

OTIS: Maine is the only place doing it statewide, but we've seen adoptions in places like New York City.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, got it. So we have local jurisdictions. Okay. So you don't think there's anything to a Western mindset. Or some of these states, I'm thinking particularly of Colorado and Nevada.

They're more purple states rather than reliably, Colorado is getting bluer, but reliably partisan. Does that make a difference? You think?

OTIS: I think there is something in ranked choice voting for everyone. In particular, for purple states, voters who go beyond just red vs. blue are really looking to be able to have more options on their ballot. And to be able to vote their conscience without feeling like they're stuck in a lesser-of-two-evils mindset. And then in states that are solidly partisan, I think primaries are the best place that ranked choice voting can have a real big impact.

If it's going to be one-party, ensure that you're selecting a nominee from that party that is broadly supported, not one who just appeals to one niche base.

CHAKRABARTI: I will note though, Deb, and I'm sure you're very familiar with this, that in fact, it was a very reliably East Coast blue state whose voters, not that long ago, completely rejected the idea of bringing ranked choice voting into the state.

And I'm talking about the place where I'm located. And that being Massachusetts, a ballot measure failed pretty solidly in Massachusetts in 2020.

So we reached out to Rachael Cobb, who's chair and associate professor of political science and legal studies at Suffolk University. And she said, quite frankly, it wasn't that surprising that Massachusetts rejected ranked choice voting.

RACHAEL COBB: Massachusetts is not the leader when it comes to any voting reform. It tends to be western states that lead the way. They're the ones who started vote by mail. They're the ones who started early voting. We're a little conservative when it comes to changing the way we do things. And so ranked choice voting, I think, fits into that model of people are like, “What? What is this?”

CHAKRABARTI: And by the way, Deb, Professor Cobb also said that because the ballot measure was put in front of voters during the pandemic, that didn't help either. And voter education was hard, was a challenge for advocates of ranked choice voting. But do you think there's any lessons learned from places like Massachusetts that have rejected the idea?

OTIS: I think it helps for a state to have some large cities in the state already doing it. Massachusetts has Cambridge, who has had a version of ranked choice voting since the 1940s. But other than that, there wasn't much ranked choice use in the state. When Maine adopted it, they had Portland, their largest city, already using it at the time.

And Alaska had used it for the Democratic presidential primary in 2020. And so Alaska Democrats who vote in presidential primaries had already used it. And so I think Massachusetts could possibly have more success with a ranked choice ballot measure in the future. I don't think the road for ranked choice is done in that state.

Already, at least five new cities have tried to move local legislation to bring ranked choice voting to their municipalities, and they're waiting on approval from the state legislature there in Massachusetts.

CHAKRABARTI: What's your best argument for why you think moving to this system is better for American democracy?

OTIS: Oh, there are so many reasons. I think the biggest one is just getting majority winners. We're not a direct democracy. We as citizens, we send people to represent us and to make policy decisions. And so it's really important that our elections are working well. So we're selecting the right people, who have the support of the broadest group of voters, so they can advance policy that the people need.

I think that is the biggest one, but other important benefits include changes to campaign tone. One of our callers mentioned that. More positive campaigning can keep things focused on issues, which is great for voters. And ranked choice has been shown to improve representation for women and people of color.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Today we are talking about ranked choice voting and the fact that four states, at least four states, and Washington D.C. are considering implementing some form of ranked choice voting in their election. So let's listen to someone from a state that's already done it.

This is Marpheen Chan in Maine, and Marpheen calls us to say he won an election because of ranked choice voting. He ran for charter commission in Portland, Maine in 2021 against the 13 other candidates.

MARPHEEN CHAN: I would say that it does lead to more collaboration and less polarization and antagonism. Although with any election there is still some of that as always. But I think as measured against a winner takes all, sort of one-on-one candidate race, I think it does create less conflict and does foster more teamwork.

CHAKRABARTI: And here is Ann Dixon in Homer, Alaska, and the way she puts it, I think might reverberate a lot with people, given our very polarized political environment right now.

ANN DIXON: Ranked choice voting is the best thing that's happened to elections in my lifetime. Finally, I can vote for my number-one choice candidate without having to worry about choosing the lesser of two evils.

CHAKRABARTI: I'm joined today by Deb Otis. She's Director of Research and Policy at FairVote. It's a organization that's advocating for ranked choice voting nationwide. And Deb, I just want to focus a little bit more on, again, the interesting group of states that's considering ranked choice voting. Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho in particular, because it is very reliably red right now.

But, looks like the ballot question that's going to be put in front of voters has the backing of lots of Iowa, excuse me, Idaho Republicans, including former Governor Butch Otter there. ... What does that tell you about ranked choice voting if it's making some inroads amongst conservatives who have traditionally opposed it?

OTIS: We're seeing a growing interest in ranked choice among legislators from both parties. Now that it's been implemented in so many locations, two states and 50 cities and counties, it's not an unknown quantity anymore, there's a playbook for what this looks like and how to do it. And so we're seeing elected officials start to become really interested in this. Most of the ballot measures that passed last year in cities were referred onto the ballot by local elected city councils or charter commissions.

And so seeing this support from legislators, I think is not surprising. They've seen enough evidence of this working in practice. I think a lot of legislators get into it because they want to solve problems. They think they can make a difference. And then they get into office and they experience gridlock.

They're unable to make progress on the issues that are important to them and to their voters. Folks are seeing ranked choice voting as a way to clear up some of that gridlock and move some important legislation that voters are asking for.

CHAKRABARTI: That is so interesting because I think the point you're making is so important. That unlike maybe in national politics, where gridlock can be allowed to persist for decades, at the state and local level, when things don't get done, it really has an impact on people, right?

Decisions don't get made over funding for hospitals or firefighters, for example, or schools. And so the gridlock becomes unacceptable. It's so fascinating to me, the 50 cities that you were talking about, Salt Lake City in Utah has had ranked choice voting since 2021. And I'm seeing here, there was an interesting article in the New York Times about this.

I had forgotten that Virginia Republicans used ranked choice voting in the 2021 election that led to Glenn Youngkin taking the governor's office. So do you think that unwillingness to let gridlock persist may be, and proving that ranked choice voting is a viable alternative, it's one of the things that's pushing the pressure upward for the system?

OTIS: Absolutely. Yes. And I think we're seeing this momentum at the city level and the state level, and that's headed towards the federal level as well. I think support in Congress tends to be a lagging indicator of popular support, and we're getting there quickly.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Let's talk about the fact that some of the interesting pushback about ranked choice voting actually comes from the left. And an interesting person who recently changed his mind about ranked choice voting is Lee Drutman.

He's a senior fellow at New America. It's a left leaning think tank. He is, I think, one of the most insightful political scientists in the country right now. And he used to support ranked choice voting, but now he says it only makes sense in certain situations, like primaries, where there may be a crowded field of candidates.

And he believes part of the disadvantage of ranked choice voting is that it may not actually make room for more third-party candidates.

LEE DRUTMAN: For example, in Maine, where they have ranked choice voting now, there were a few independent candidates. And basically, you still have the same two-party competition. We haven't seen the entrance of more parties or really more candidates. Because people need to feel like they have a chance at winning. Ranked choice voting really relies on candidates entering the race, but if you're just going from spoiler to not quite a spoiler, but no chance, still no chance of winning, who's going to want to do that?

CHAKRABARTI: Deb, would you like to respond to that?

OTIS: I think it's a great point. And I think ranked choice voting should be considered one piece of the reform puzzle. There's no one reform that's going to fully save democracy. Anyone telling you that it is trying to sell you something and is exaggerating.

We need to consider ranked choice can do several things. It solves about five problems, but it doesn't solve the other five necessarily. I suspect if Lee were here, he might suggest we need to go further and adopt proportional representation. And I think he's right in some contexts. But there are some offices that will always be just for one person.

There's no concept of proportional representation for, say, a governor. We're only electing one. And ranked choice voting is the best way to take the temperature of the electorate and elect someone who has the broadest support and can best represent the voters.

CHAKRABARTI: It's interesting because about the third-party question, we actually got a call from Anne Luther in Maine who had a really different point of view of the impact of ranked choice voting on independent candidates. Because she told us there was a third-party candidate who ran in an election in Maine recently, and that candidate said it was explicitly because of ranked choice voting.

ANNE LUTHER: There was an independent third party, small party candidate who said out loud that she would not have run if it hadn't been for ranked choice voting because she knew she would be a spoiler.

But with ranked choice voting, she could run, make a campaign, she could have her voice heard, she could contribute to the conversation, she could do all that stuff. And I thought that was a good thing.

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting pushback there from Anne in Maine. But Deb, there's also something else. Again, this gets mathematical, but I really want us to take the opportunity to use this show as a vehicle to explain, clearly, the math.

There's also the concern that ranked choice voting can lead to a possibility where the candidate who wins a plurality of the vote, in a race where there are multiple candidates, still may not end up the winner. And that's actually why some Democrats resist expanding ranked choice voting.

In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom actually vetoed legislation that would have expanded it in California. So can you help explain that for me?

OTIS: Sure. I call these come from behind win because it sounds dramatic, and I like that. In ranked choice voting, if there's a majority winner among first choices, then that person's elected.

If there's not, as we talked about, you eliminate the last place candidate, and those voters then get to weigh in between the finalists. Their ballot gets transferred to a finalist. Sometimes the person who had the most first choices, say they got 40% of first choices. Sometimes they effectively get leapfrogged, and once the second choices and third choices are transferred, and someone else goes on to win.

This is just like in runoff elections. A lot of states, a lot of southern states use runoff elections. And sometimes the person who wins the runoff is different than the person who was in the lead in the first round. That is natural. It is a feature of ranked choice voting. It happens about 10% of the time.

And that means when we're not using ranked choice voting, we're getting it wrong 10% of the time. In a democracy, when we're failing to select the winner with broad support 10% of the time, that's why we need this fix.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so can we go back to Wonder Woman, Spider Man, and Batman in order to explain what you just said?

OTIS: Absolutely.

CHAKRABARTI: Alright, so Wonder Woman did not get into the the general in our particular vote here. Spider Man and Batman did, but let's say Batman in the primary actually won more votes than Spider Man. Is that what you're talking about? That then in the runoff that happens, the natural runoff that happens in ranked choice voting, Spider Man could still win even though he didn't get the largest number of votes in the primary.

OTIS: So it's all, I would call it, I would not use the terms primary in general here because it's all one election.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay.

OTIS: The ranked choice voting is like an instant runoff. The votes are tabulated in a matter of a couple of seconds. And so let's say in our hypothetical election, we count up first choices.

Batman's got 40% support. Spider Man's got 35% support and then Wonder Woman has the rest and that puts her in last. So when Wonder Woman is eliminated, those ballots, when those ballots transfer, Spider Man was just a little bit behind Batman, but if most Wonder Woman supporters like Spider Man better, then you've got a solid Wonder-Spider coalition, and it would be appropriate to elect one of those two candidates.

And so when Wonder Woman voters get to weigh in, between their top two choices, if they like Spider Man better, that can push him into the lead.

CHAKRABARTI: I see. Okay, so that's your response to the person who did not win the plurality vote in a contest, doesn't end up the winner. Sorry, Batman! Okay, that actually helps so much, Deb.

I just have to pause for a second and say, I'm Meghna Chakrabarti. This is On Point. All right, Deb, let's go back to Lee Drutman again. And some of his concerns about ranked choice voting again, coming from a progressive point of view, just want to resurface the idea that it's a confusing system again. Because Lee says, the ballot, the physical ballot, can become a more complicated ballot, and it actually requires, in order to rank candidates, it requires people to learn about more candidates than they otherwise would have.

LEE DRUTMAN: I thought that more voters were gonna take more advantage of the rankings, but there there's a fair amount of ballot truncation and thus ballot exhaustion. Where you wind up, you know, 10% of ballots being exhausted means that they're thrown out before you get to the final winner. And that tends to particularly be true among lower income precincts and lower income voters, you know, people who don't have as many – as much political information.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So that's his concern about the complications in the system that he sees. But I think Lee Drutman's biggest problem, pushback against ranked choice voting has to do with his dire diagnosis of the health of American democracy right now, because he says ranked choice voting simply does not go far enough to break the United States out of what he calls the two-party doom loop.

DRUTMAN: Maybe if you're at stage 2 democracy decline, you want to do something that's a little bit more gentle as an intervention, but when you get to stage 3 and stage 4, you need some more aggressive treatment. So imagine you've got a bowl and you've got an orange at the bottom of the bowl. And the goal is to get the orange out of the bowl. Now you can kind of push the orange a little bit up the side of the bowl, but as soon as you let go, it's going to fall back. You’ve really got to apply a lot of force to get it out of the bowl. You need reforms that really are much more powerful and really build new political parties.

CHAKRABARTI: That's Lee Drutman, senior fellow at the left leading think tank, New America. And Lee, all due respect, I have thoughts. I'm going to mix some metaphors here, too, as well, and be like, orange is the bottom of the bowl, but how about you can't walk, you can't run before you learn how to walk. Or you need a multistage rocket to get to the moon, and you have to fire off the first and second stage before the third stage gets you to the moon, but anyway.

Those are my thoughts. Let me turn back to the actual expert, Deb. Many people do have profound concerns about the state of American democracy right now. And actually, I understand deeply that they think nothing short of a big fix is going to really make America the truly representative place, with a representative government, that we aspire it to be.

So don't waste time on small fixes like ranked choice voting. And your thoughts on that?

OTIS: Meghna, I think Lee is right that we need bold changes, and I think you're right that we also need a reasonable game plan to get from here to there, and some small steps are needed. ranked choice voting, on its own, solves a lot of problems, but not every problem.

There's also a version of ranked choice voting, when you're electing multiple winners at a time, that's a form of proportional representation. And this is the other thing that FairVote really works on. I consider it step two. The movement for ranked choice voting is making meaningful impact right now.

It's already causing positive changes, but there is also further that we can go. In fact, there's a bill called the Fair Representation Act which is going to be reintroduced in Congress tomorrow, lead sponsors, Don Beyer of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland. This bill would implement ranked choice voting for the House of Representatives, but it would also change our congressional districts to multi member districts.

I know you're in Massachusetts. We'll use an example there. You've got nine districts. Instead of nine districts that elect one person, this blows that up. This says, let's have three districts that elect three people each. This gets more fair representation across Massachusetts for both major parties, creates space for independent and third-party candidates, and does better at representing communities of color.

And so this bill is coming to Congress tomorrow.

CHAKRABARTI: Wow. They say about states being the laboratories of democracy, so we'll see what the states do about ranked choice voting later this year.