Most Americans vote under a “first-past-the-post” electoral system, meaning that the candidate with the highest number of votes wins.

It sounds simple and makes sense at face-value, but there are a number of issues with this approach, including:

• No majority required to win. For example, in a three-candidate race, a candidate with 35% of the votes can win, while the other candidates have 30% and 25%, respectively. Not exactly a mandate for governing ALL people.

• Underrepresentation of minority views: First-past-the-post tend to favor larger political parties because the ability to win seats with just a plurality of votes means that small parties and independent candidates are viewed as “spoilers,” and have difficulty building enough support to win more votes than the major parties. This can marginalize smaller parties and minority viewpoints, leading to a less diverse representation in the legislature.

• Polarization and divisiveness: First-past-the-post voting can contribute to political polarization and divisiveness by promoting a “winner-takes-all” mentality and discouraging candidates from appealing to as wide of a voter base as possible. When all candidates need to win is to get more votes than anyone else, they’re incentivized to appeal to their base and try to discourage anyone else from voting.

In fact, under our current election system the public’s trust in government has reached near record lows because many people feel that the system fails to address their needs and that their voices are neither heard nor adequately represented.

With Ranked Choice Voting, the benefits over winner-take-all systems are clear and numerous:

• Results in majority, consensus winners
• Eliminates spoiler candidates and voting for the “lesser of two evils.”
• Saves tax dollars by avoiding runoff elections
• Promotes cleaner campaigns with less mud-slinging since candidates have to appeal to ALL voters
• Improves opportunities for Independent and third-party candidates

In a Ranked Choice Voting election, voters have the option to rank candidates in order of choice – first choice, second choice, and so on. If a candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, they win – just like today.

But if nobody receives a majority of first choices, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. The voters who ranked that candidate first then have their vote instantly go to their second choice. This process, which is called instant runoff, continues until there is a majority winner.

We can go on and on, but everywhere it’s been tried, RCV has been proven a popular success.