Constitutional, Legal Doubts Grow Over Ranked-Choice Voting

Ranked-choice voting is poised to play a role in two of the country’s most heated upcoming Senate primaries, in Maine, which will vote on Tuesday, and Alaska. For years, advocates of the balloting innovation have portrayed it as the future of American elections. Billed as a cure for polarization and a boost to voter choice, ranked-choice voting was supposed to be inevitable.The reality has been very different. Recent months have seen another series of setbacks for ranked-choice voting advocates. These losses are not isolated events. They are part of a sustained pattern since 2024 of rejection that its supporters can no longer dismiss.Missouri voters in 2024 approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting the practice. The same year, Colorado voters rejected a ranked-choice ballot measure, Proposition 131. In 2026, Ohio and Indiana enacted statewide bans. Utah’s pilot program expired without expansion, and many participating cities withdrew before it ended. Michigan supporters failed to qualify a statewide initiative for the ballot.Local governments have also pushed back. Proposals were rejected at Albuquerque, New Mexico; Vista, California; and Appleton, Wisconsin. Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court blocked an effort to expand ranked-choice voting, ruling that it conflicted with the state’s constitutional requirement that elections be decided by plurality vote.Taken together, these developments do not reflect a reform movement building momentum. They reflect a system facing growing scrutiny from voters, lawmakers, courts, and election officials.Supporters often point to jurisdictions that have adopted ranked-choice voting as evidence of the system’s success. But implementation has frequently proven more difficult than advertised.Even where ranked-choice voting has been adopted, challenges remain. The District of Columbia provides a recent example. Although voters approved ranked-choice voting, an Opportunity D.C. survey found that 43 percent of voters remained unaware of the change as implementation approached. Election officials have spent significant resources on voter education, and a D.C. council member introduced emergency legislation to delay implementation because of readiness concerns.That experience raises a simple question: If a voting system requires extensive public education before voters understand how ballots will be counted, is it really making elections more accessible?One of the most significant setbacks for ranked-choice voting this year came from Maine.In March, Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court ruled that an effort to expand ranked-choice voting beyond federal elections violated the state’s constitution. Because the Maine Constitution requires winners in state elections to be determined by plurality vote, lawmakers could not simply expand ranked-choice voting through ordinary legislation.The decision was important because it reaffirmed a principle often overlooked in election reform debates: election systems must operate within constitutional boundaries.Ranked-choice voting also creates what are known as exhausted ballots. When all of a voter’s ranked candidates are eliminated, that ballot is removed from later rounds of counting. As a result, some voters who participated in the election are no longer represented in the final tally.Supporters argue this is simply part of the counting process. Critics argue that it undermines one of the central promises of ranked-choice voting — that winners emerge with broad voter support.Transparency presents another challenge. In a traditional election, voters can easily understand how votes are counted and winners are determined. Ranked-choice voting relies on multiple rounds of elimination and ballot transfers, typically calculated by computer software. While the process can be explained, it is far more difficult for ordinary citizens to verify it independently.Election systems should not only be accurate. They should also be understandable and transparent. Public confidence depends on both.One setback can be dismissed. A growing list cannot. States have banned ranked-choice voting. Voters have rejected it. Courts have blocked it. Local governments continue to walk away from it. The promised momentum never arrived.Americans are increasingly asking a simple question: Does ranked-choice voting make elections easier to understand and trust? An increasing number of voters, lawmakers, judges, and election officials appear to believe the answer is no.

Constitutional, Legal Doubts Grow Over Ranked-Choice Voting

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