Voting

Joe Lancaster | 9.26.2024 3:05 PM

For those of us who actually vote, the process can be dispiriting. It often involves waiting in long lines on a weekday at some random schoolhouse or decommissioned train depot, just to cast a ballot for a candidate that chances are, you don't even particularly like—you just hate the other guy more.

Ranked choice voting could potentially help break up these doldrums. On a ranked choice ballot, instead of picking one candidate from a list, voters rank each candidate in order of preference. If one candidate wins an outright majority, then that person wins; if not, then the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated, and their ballots are re-tallied and allotted to whomever they picked as their second choice. This process repeats until one candidate passes 50 percent.

While ranked choice can't cure what's wrong with American politics, it can at least prevent the election of candidates without majoritarian support. It could also help potentially break up the two-party logjam by allowing people to vote for alternative candidates without worrying about acting as a spoiler—after all, if their desired candidate doesn't win, their vote will be re-tallied for whomever they would likely have settled for anyway.

The November elections represent an inflection point in the widespread adoption of ranked choice voting: Four states and Washington, D.C., will vote on whether to adopt such a system of their own. And of the two states that currently use ranked choice voting statewide, one will decide whether to abandon it.

Some cities in the Centennial State already use ranked choice voting, most prominently Boulder. Proposition 131 would implement ranked choice statewide for U.S. senator and representative, state senator and representative, governor, lieutenant governor, and certain other state offices.

Currently, Colorado has partially closed primaries, open only to party members and unaffiliated voters—members of one party cannot participate in another party's primary. Proposition 131 would replace party primaries with "an all-candidate primary election featuring all candidates for those state and federal offices, with the final four candidates advancing to the general elections." On the general election ballot, "the voter may rank candidates in order of preference" and "may choose to rank as many or as few candidates for the covered offices…as the voter wishes, including ranking just one candidate per covered office." The votes would then be tallied and re-tallied as needed until one candidate achieved a majority.

The measure has attracted both supporters and detractors from each major political party. "Colorado has changed in the last 10 years," said former Colorado Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams. "We went from a third…in the electorate to now, nearly 50% of the electorate are unaffiliated voters. They are rejecting both parties, and they're rejecting both parties because both parties are going to their extremes, both Republicans and Democrats."

Gov. Jared Polis (D) also endorsed the measure, writing on Facebook, "I think instant runoff voting is better than our current system because it gives voters more choices. I'm hopeful that if it passes it will encourage participation and improve our democracy."

Meanwhile, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R–Colo.) called ranked choice voting a "scheme" in a 2023........

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