RCV trends: Four states ban RCV in 2025, bringing the number of states with bans to 15.
(Okay idk why it says 15 up here then later says 16, somebody on that site probably didn’t update the title text)
As of April 30, five states had banned RCV in 2025, which brought the total number of states that prohibit RCV to 16.
- Gov. Mark Gordon (Republican) signed HB 165 on March 18.
- West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (Republican) signed SB 490 the March 19.
- Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (Democrat) signed SB 6 into law on April 1.
- North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong (Republican) signed HB 1297 on April 15.
- Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican) signed HB 1706 which became law on April 17.
Six states banned RCV in 2024.
Why YSK: If you’re a US-American, its time to pay attention to State and Local politics instead of solely on the Federal. There is a trend in conservative jurisdictions to stop progress in making elecoral systems more fair. Use this opportunity as a rallying-cry to pass Ranked-Choice Voting in progressive jurisdictions, and hopefully everyone else takes notes. Sometimes, all you need is a few states adopting a law to become the catalyst for it to become the model for the entire country, for better or for worse. Don’t allow anti-RCV legislations to dominate, counter the propaganda with pro-RCV arguments. Time to turn the tide.
Edit: fixed formatting
Edit 2: Added in the map so you don’t have to click the link:
See the pattern? 🤔
At what point is a democracy not a democracy any more?
A better question would be “when was there ever been a true democracy?”
For me, there hasn’t been. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. It means that we need to truly internalise that wealth and power will, if left unchecked, succeed in perverting it entirely. We need to be ever augmenting it, with that in mind, with a view to playing whack a mole with the interests of the 1% and keeping it working for the 99%.
I mean that won’t work either. The rich and powerful will never allow us to simply vote away their ill beggoten wealth and power. However, at least people could say that they tried.
I don’t think we’ll ever have a “true” democracy.
Its like the concept of “utopia”, you can get closer and closer, but never actually reach it
Like an asymptote in mathematics.
- For patriots, politicians and NPCs: As long as there is democracy in the name (Democratic Republic of Korea)
- For decent people: As soon as the laws/choices the government produces are no longer what the average person would choose.
Sadly, some states, people voted against ranked-choice-voting in referendum. Seems lile people just hear a complex idea and want to shut it down because it challenged their simplistic worldview.
The USA is too big to be a democracy. It would need to be several smaller regions/countries that had equal rights when dealing with each other. But its much easier to just force people to do what you want rather than make a mutually beneficial deal.
So, like, … maybe 50 or so smaller regions? And a few other mostly even smaller territories that don’t get those rights, just for funsies?
I joke, of course. But in seriousness: Are you suggesting the US just defederate and become more like, say, the EU? What are you anticipating that would solve? Moreover, what is it that makes it too big to be a democracy? Can large governments exist only in authoritarian forms? Why would that be?
Not sure. Ancient societies also used FPTP and they are still considered by some Scholars/Historians as “democracy” 🤷♂️
Personally, I think government systems are actually a type of technology. Unfortunately, they aren’t the kind of research where you can easily experiment and iterate upon, since people tend to die in massive numbers if the experiment fails.
For the U.S., the decisive blow came with the Citizens United ruling, although it’s not unreasonable to suggest the refusal to punish Nixon during watergate signaled that the rule of law was merely a suggestion. That kicked off a whole cascade of political and legal maneuvering to get both the legislative and societal landscape into such a contortion that it would willingly hand away the entire nation to vulture-capitalists.
absolutely shocked that southern states with the worst education and track history of the most oppressive laws would do this to their constituents
they’ve been nothing but whored-out welfare states the whole fucking time
There was a STRONG effort to ban (or at least end) RCV here in Alaska, and it failed, but barely. They even did the super misleading wording, too, in order to make it unclear if the measure banned RCV or supported it.
I was always so confused by the adamant support that was being shown by general people, though. Like, I get why both Dems and Republicans would be against it: they want to be the only two players in the game. But why any general people would want less choice is beyond me. And it’s funny, because the staunchest proponents (at least where I am) were conservatives, when (again, where I live) RCV basically drove out the Democrats. There were Progressives, there were “centrists,” there were Libertarians, and then there was Republican/MAGA. Dems didn’t even get enough support to be on the ballot. So their hated Libs were wiped off the board entirely for being so ill-liked, but they want to get rid of that system? I just don’t get it.
People are stupid. They think RCV is “too confusing”
I feel like it can kind of be confusing to understand how the process works for it.
But it is not even remotely confusing as to what you do. Choose, from most to least, who you want. It’s that simple. You want to get into how those votes are tallied, do a little dive, there’s plenty of videos very simply explaining it. If you don’t, and just want to be able to go vote? Just go vote. If even ranking them is too complicated because you have a worm in your brain, just choose one and ignore everything else.
It might be complicated to tally, but it is not complicated to do. It’s just people being duped by the Big 2 parties to not want choices.
Don’t worry. Voting altogether will be next.
The fact that Americans banned it, means it good for the people.
Lol home of the free, what a shit hole
the gop specifically, they know thier VOter suppression and gerrymander all BS, and would be negated if that happened.
If it happened, both parties were responsible, they work in tandem, pretending to be different sides, so you get fucked no matter where you vote.
What is a ban going to do.
It just changes the language of the acceptance bill
Pre-empts local laws preventing sub-divisions of the State (Cities, Towns) from enacting their own election system that would use “ranking” as a method of determining candidates winning or losing.
Renaming the system will not bypass the ban.
Sarah huckabee did something awful??? Shocked I say
Nothing screams “democracy” like explicitely banning a voting system
Explicitly
well, to be fair, shitty electoral systems should be banned, like FPTP, because they aren’t representative. what’s happening here is sadly the opposite.
It still shouldn’t be banned, it should be up for debate when picking a system. Explicitly banning a system is pretty much anti-democratic by nature.
No it is not. Agreeing on that it should be banned is a democratic choice. It is an anti-democratic system not fit for purpose in 2025. our understanding of electoral science and maths is much more advanced now. FPTP should NEVER be on the table.
FPTP is fine in many small scale applications. How should a town of 5,000 people elect their mayor otherwise?
Ranked choice is still better though… scale doesn’t really matter here, the point is to let people vote for who they want, not for who they think might win.
On that level you often only have two, one or sometimes no candidate.
There is no need to enforce a more complicated system that needs to be explained to everyone, risks more people accidentally voting different than they wanted or invalidating their vote by misunderstanding the rules.
I have helped with elections in Germany where the parliament has two votes. One for the local candidate FPTP and one for a party, where the parties proportional rates are then assembled in the parliament. I had to explain people the votes and what they do all the time. Because the two votes are on one paper it is a mess to count, as you can’t just stack them easily because of the possible combinations.
When it gets to state and national levels having proportional systems for parliaments and ranked choice for single candidates i am all for it. But there is no point in pushing for a more complicated system for smaller elections.
It’s not anymore complicated. This is the exact argument that got it banned in my state. Because some people think we’re too stupid to count to 2. No if there are only 2 candidates you vore for one or the other and if you really want to be special you can rank them even if it won’t matter. This is not a difficult concept.
Yeah that makes sense. I guess once people get used to ranked voting in large elections, then you could have it in small elections too. Thanks for the reply.
or sometimes no candidate
How does FPTP help in that scenario?
risks more people accidentally voting different than they wanted
Can you describe how that might happen?
Approval
Ranked choice should be the standard
This is democrats and Republicans not wanting people to vote for their candidate of choice because they have to constantly play the game of the lesser of two evils. They wanna keep power
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Gov. Mark Gordon (Republican) signed HB 165 on March 18.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (Republican) signed SB 490 the March 19.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (Democrat) signed SB 6 into law on April 1.
North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong (Republican) signed HB 1297 on April 15.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican) signed HB 1706 which became law on April 17.
5/6 are Republican shitheads however.
While Kansas has a Democratic governor, I wouldn’t call it a blue state. State Congress is likely all red. This was likely a ballot measure and the people voted on it. The governor just put into law what the people voted on. Nothing more.
So I looked into this being from Kansas it kind of pissed me off. Turns out she won with like 49% where the Rs got only 47 and two different third parties took about 4%. So Rs were pushing for it thinking those that cast third party would put them next over the Dem, while calling them wasted and spoiled votes. So this was proposed by the Wichita mayor under the guise that RCV was too complicated for people to understand, and likely kelly signed the ban because of fear she might lose her minor majority. Total fucking bullshit politics as usual.
So this was proposed by the Wichita mayor under the guise that RCV was too complicated for people to understand, and likely kelly signed the ban because of fear she might lose her minor majority. Total fucking bullshit politics as usual.
Sounds like them. Capitulating to Republicans because of fear.
While Kansas has a Democratic governor, I wouldn’t call it a blue state.
Ah so the one time it happened it doesn’t count.
By that logic, California is a red state because Schwarzenegger was Governor at one point.
Yes it was. California had a Republican in charge the people liked and kept around. Only really because he was an actor.
If Schwarzenegger was a random nobody, he wouldn’t have won the recall.
So California is a red state? Got it.
This is the reality of the ‘both sides…’ arguments, yes both sides are guilty of doing despicable things but the scales are very heavily tipped in one direction.
Unfortunately with how far americans have legislated and tightened the stranglehold on control of the ‘democratic’ process, i dont see this ever being undone… ‘willingly’…deleted by creator
Did she veto it?
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Yes, I’m just saying making Republicans do extra work is good.
Your right about that, it is a fair thing to point out. However, I will mention that the democratic party has a hostile past to 3rd parties where they would do things like suing them to get them off ballots.
Here is one example for reference: https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-lawsuits-voting-north-carolina-raleigh-48f1e61c1988c7083edcdc7bb1eace4a
And this is why you have the 2A
Golly what a surprise! Duopoly gonna duopoly!
Remember that you still have power in this system by not voting for a party if they do not fulfill your demands.
Or vote against the one party (starts with an R) that continues to make the duopoly happen by banning RCV, and for the party (starts with a D) that’s far more likely to implement RCV.
Statistically when you don’t vote, you are effectively voting Republican. When turn out is high Dems tend to win, and when it’s low the GOP wins.
Not voting is definitely not going to change anything
People don’t vote in primaries enough.
AOC did it. Beat the corporate PoS. We can all do it.
And if they try to rig it, we do a little French-style direct action 😏
Reminder that even Democrats banned it and “commie hellhole” California had its governor veto it.
We voted for it at the county level here in CA. That was back in 2020. San Diego county voted to use RCV, as did several other counties in CA. The county registrar of voters is refusing to change from FPTP, and is waiting to see how the lawsuits turn out.
Even if your state hasn’t banned it, they will fight you tooth and nail not to change it.
Ohio is trying to ban it this year.
I get why Gen alpha use “Ohio” to describe something bad now
God damn Skibidi Ohio polititians with no rizz, no cap fr fr, voters with brainrot smh
(sorry for the use of Gen alpha brainrot language)
I know a number of Gen alpha kids. None of them use those phrases. They are Gen Z terms.
The oldest Gen Alpha kids are 11 and turning 12 this year
I’m gen z and never heard the words “skibidi” “rizz” irl
I did hear “no cap” and “Alpha”/“Beta” tho
How many 13 year old gen-Z do you know though? A fifteen year time band encompasses a lot of people (because these are just marketing tools in reality)
Yeah, obscenely gerrymandered Republican supermajority in the state legislature really sucks.
Mainer here. Its great, except that the governor’s race is specifically exempted from RCV. May have something to do with GOP former governor LePage, but can’t recall before my morning meds…
We have rcv here for local elections in nyc but not for any state or federal elections
because the state and fed levels are corrupt as hell. the local level seemed more amenable, although i suspect the nyc mayoral elections will be thoroughly fiddled.
Which reminds me. Governor of NY didn’t even fucking sack Crooked Adams. That just tells all you need to know. Crooks covering for crooks. Now the crook in cheif drops the charges on Adams.
What a shitshow.
