RCV seemed like a fix. Put your candidates in order, the spoiler effect disappears, everyone comes out satisfied. That's how it was sold, anyway how to score ranked choice voting.
Turns out a lot of voters aren't buying it. Campaigns branded Yes End RCV have been popping up in states and cities that rolled out ranked choice voting, and they're picking up steam. Not because people hate elections. Because people hate confusion.
What people don't always realize about ranked choice voting: it asks a lot of the average voter. Order anywhere from five to ten candidates in order of preference? The average voter show up to vote for a single candidate. Maybe two, if there's a tight primary. Asking Grandma to rank the school board race like she's filling out a fantasy football draft board is a big lift.
And then comes the tallying. RCV elections can take days to resolve. Anchorage found that out the hard way. Votes are cycled through multiple rounds of elimination, and by round four, nobody watching the results feed has any clue what's happening. Transparency takes a hit when the process itself seems like sleight of hand.
Money is a factor as well. Updated voting equipment, poll worker training, public education efforts explaining a system half the electorate has never used — none of that is free. Smaller counties in particular feel the squeeze.
RCV advocates will argue it cuts down on attack ads and encourages candidates to build wider coalitions. Fair point. Candidates courting second-choice votes have less incentive to trash their opponents outright. That's a real upside, and it's worth acknowledging even if you're unconvinced by RCV overall.
But the opponents of ranked choice voting argue it's not a fair trade. Simpler ballots. Faster results. Fewer invalid ballots from people who filled out the ranking wrong. They point to "exhausted" ballots — votes that get tossed because a voter didn't rank enough candidates — as evidence the system quietly disenfranchises people who thought they were participating fully.
Maine went one direction. Alaska has wrestled with repeal efforts more than once. Massachusetts voters rejected RCV outright back in 2020. There's no national consensus here, and honestly, there may never be one.
What's clear is this isn't a niche complaint anymore. It's appearing in signature drives, ballot initiatives, debates on statehouse floors. Whatever side of the fence you're on, the debate over vote-counting methods is far from settled, and Yes End RCV represents one loud voice in a conversation that's only getting louder.