SCEF: Rank choice voting

By Olivia Stevermer

Voting is one of the most obvious examples of civic engagement. While who you vote for is considered political engagement, just the act of voting itself and engaging with democracy is the keystone of civic engagement. Voter registration and voter turn-out are some of the biggest campaigning efforts from any political entity or community policy group. There is a lot of information out there about how to vote, and how it differs from state to state and city to city. It can take initiative to synthesize all of this information into a solid understanding of your own voting opportunities and processes. SCEF is committed to helping inform and engage voters. 

There are many levels you can vote on: school board, city, county, state, federal, etc. There are also many ways that you can vote: mail-in, early, in-person, etc. 5 cities in Minnesota, including St. Paul, use a process called “rank-choice” voting. This allows voters to rank a specific number of candidates (based on the city policy) from most preferred to less preferred. It is helpful in political races when there are more than two candidates, because it is structured to find a candidate with the widest support among the population. The idea is that if your first choice candidate loses, your vote can still count toward your second choice. In rank-choice voting, a candidate needs to get over 50% of the votes to win, not just a majority like in typical single choice voting systems. You only get one vote per rank, and the election is based on which candidate gets over 50% of the vote within a ranking. This means that though it may seem like you get to vote multiple times, your vote in the end will only count once. 

There are many conversations around rank choice voting and its perceived pros and cons. While some people are just resistant to change, or put off by it being a seemingly “more complex” system, there are some valid concerns with rank choice voting. Some people think that it is more likely to promote moderate candidates as opposed to progressives if the voting reaches the second or third rounds. However, regardless, it does ensure that the candidate who wins will have the widest base of support even if they aren’t everyone’s first choice. Additionally, rank-choice voting does have the potential to help progressives too. It can work to help bridge the choice people are struggling with between the candidates they want to win and those that they think have the best chance (that they can live with). It also encourages more civil campaigns, because people aren’t just vying for first place, they could also win from being someone’s second choice. 

If or when you participate in rank-choice voting, remember that you don’t have to rank all of the candidates, just those that you would be okay with winning. If you don’t put someone on your ballot, then your vote will not go to them no matter how far down the rankings the process goes.