Voters reject ranked choice voting in 4 states, approve it in D.C.

Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rebuffed efforts to adopt ranked-choice voting in their future elections, dealing a setback to a group of wealthy donors who wanted to dramatically change how Americans choose their elected officials.

The one bright spot for advocates of ranked-choice voting was the District, where a referendum was approved by a wide margin.

Under this system, voters rank their top choices in elections. If the top vote-getter wins a majority, the election is decided in their favor. But if no candidates get a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.

Voters whose top choice are eliminated then would have their ballot cast for their next selection. The process, also known as an “instant runoff,” is repeated until one candidate receives a majority of the vote.

The practice is already in use in Alaska and Maine. But Alaska voters, who initially approved ranked-choice voting in a 2020 referendum, voted Tuesday whether to undo the change.

The repeal effort is being led by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R), who lost a bid for the U.S. House in Alaska in 2022 during a ranked-choice voting contest. With 75 percent of the ballots counted on Wednesday morning, voters were narrowly supporting the repeal but the race remained too close to call.

Ahead of Tuesday’s voting, advocates hoped that they would triple the number of states that would use ranked-choice voting in elections in 2026 and beyond.

Meredith Sumpter, president and chief executive of FairVote, which advocated for the change, had referred to the referendums as an “inflection point” for the nation.

Advocates argue that ranked choice would lead to more moderate politics by making it less likely that candidates who are rigidly ideological can prevail. They say it also dilutes the power of political parties by opening up the voting process to more candidates.

The results show, however, that voters in rural parts of Colorado, Oregon and Nevada were especially opposed to the changes, leading to the failure of the referendums.

Critics say ranked-choice voting remains a relatively untested voting method that could damage the nation’s political system by making it harder to audit votes. They also say it burdens local county clerks and local elections officials and could exasperate the influence wealthy individuals have over the political process.

“Ranked-choice voting is a system that can be complicated and confusing to voters and can end up with more eligible voters having their ballots tossed and not counted,” said Peter Koltak of Protect Your Vote Nevada, which opposed that state’s ranked-choice voter referendum. “It absolutely biases to candidates who have their own personal financial resources or can raise the most money.”

The pro-ranked-choice-voting referendums were funded by a lucrative campaign organized by Unite America, a philanthropic group that advocates for voting changes.

Nick Troiano, executive director of Unite America, said his group spent about $50 million on 12 initiatives that advocate for ranked-choice voting or open primaries, including heavy spending in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon.

“The folks who are saying this [ranked-choice voting] system is confusing and complicated are not the voters,” Troiano said. “It’s the special interests trying to maintain the status quo. The core of their assertion is voters are not smart enough to rank their candidates.”

One major donor to Unite America is Kent Thiry, a former chairman of a health-care company who is co-chairman of the group. Thiry previously flirted with running for governor of Colorado.

According to ColoradoPolitics.com, Thirty has given $3.2 million to Colorado Voters First, which led the campaign for Colorado’s Proposition 131. In an interview this summer with Colorado Public Radio, Thiry said he is trying to enhance the country’s democracy by giving voters more options.

“There aren’t that many great democracies that have survived more than a couple hundred years. And in order to survive, you have to modernize and modify and reflect society,” Thiry said.

Ellen Dumm, a consultant for Voter Rights Colorado, which opposed Proposition 131, said Thiry’s interest in the referendum is a self-serving effort to make it easier for wealthy individuals to run for office. She said the effort also ignored appeals from county clerks and voting rights groups that Colorado should first study how the changes would impact the electoral process.

Dumm had estimated that Colorado would need to spend $21 million over three years to implement the change.

“Instead of trying to get some compromise, he [Thiry] decided to ram it down our throats, without understanding the nitty-gritty of how elections work,” said Dumm, who is also an elections judge.

Under the referendums, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada would have held open primaries to decide the candidates in a general election. In Colorado and Idaho, the top four candidates would have advanced to the general election.

In Nevada, where Unite America has spent more than $6 million supporting the measure, the top five candidates would have advanced.

Ranked-choice voting would have then been used in the general election in those states.

The referendum in Oregon would have allowed for traditional primaries, but ranked-choice voting would have been used in both contests. The District’s referendum would also use ranked-choice voting in both the primary and general election. The District also would allow voters not affiliated with either party to vote in primary elections.

In Alaska, the referendum would repeal that state’s open primary law as well as the ranked-choice voting system that Democrat Mary Peltola used to defeat Palin in 2022. Palin is a key backer of efforts to repeal the law, calling it “whack,” according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting point to election victories by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) as proof that the process benefits moderate candidates who are willing to reach out to a range of potential voters.

“In our current elections, sometimes it’s good enough to just pander to one niche base, and that tends to be an extremist base,” said Deb Otis, the director of research and policy at FairVote. “But with ranked-choice voting … the candidates who do best are those who can have a solid base of first choices, but also appeal as a second choice and a third choice.”

Appealing to all of those voters, however, will cost even more money, Koltak had argued.

“It’s great if you are establishment and well-funded and have access to a lot of resources,” Koltak said. “But if you are outside the establishment, or third party, I am not sure this really allows yourself to push yourself forward in a general election.”