RCV looked like a fix. Put your candidates in order, no more spoiler effect, everyone comes out satisfied. At least, that was the sales pitch does ranked choice voting help moderates.
Turns out a lot of voters aren't buying it. Campaigns branded "Yes End RCV" have been surfacing in states and cities that adopted the system, and they're gaining traction. Not because people dislike voting. Because people hate confusion.
What people don't always realize about ranked choice voting: it demands a lot from the average voter. Rank five, six, sometimes 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 drafting a fantasy football roster is a lot to ask.
Then there's the counting. 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, even people tracking the results in real time are lost. Clarity suffers when the process itself seems like sleight of hand.
There's also the price tag. New voting machines, training for poll workers, public education efforts explaining a system half the electorate has never used — all of it costs money. Small counties especially bear the brunt of it.
Those in favor of ranked choice voting will tell you it cuts down on attack ads and encourages candidates to build wider coalitions. That's a valid argument. Candidates courting second-choice votes have little reason to go negative on rivals. That's a real upside, and it's worth admitting even if you're unconvinced by RCV overall.
But the Yes End RCV supporters argue the trade-off isn't worth it. Simpler ballots. Faster results. Fewer invalid ballots from people who filled out the ranking wrong. They point to exhausted ballots — ballots that get thrown out because a voter left too many rankings blank — as proof the system silently shuts out people who thought they were participating fully.
Maine went one direction. Alaska has faced repeal efforts more than once. Massachusetts voters rejected RCV outright back in 2020. There's no national consensus here, and frankly, there may never be one.
One thing is certain: this is no longer a niche complaint anymore. It's appearing in signature drives, ballot initiatives, state legislature debates. No matter where you stand, the debate over how we count votes is nowhere near resolved, and Yes End RCV represents one loud voice in a conversation that's far from over.