A voter in Washington, D.C., brings her ballot to a drop box outside the Mt. Pleasant Library on Nov. 5. The city’s voters delivered one of the few wins for ranked choice voting this election. (Noelle Straub/Stateline)
Voters in several states last week delivered a stinging rebuke to ranked choice voting, clouding the future of an idea that had seen strong momentum in recent years.
Ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank political candidates by preference, is used statewide in Alaska and Maine and in major U.S. localities such as New York City and San Francisco.
But voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected ballot measures that would have adopted ranked choice voting for packed races. In Missouri, voters approved a ballot measure banning the approach statewide and locally, except for a grandfather clause for St. Louis municipal elections.
Results are still too close to call on a measure to scrap Alaska’s existing use of ranked choice voting. With 94% of results reported, the measure was up by about 2,400 votes.