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? 🤔
Really bugs me how americans talk about “ranked choice voting” because you guys seem to mean STV, which is a form of proportional representation with multi-member districts.
But in Canada, “ranked ballots” meant IRV, which was basically FPTP with a ranked ballot, and ironically exacerbated the worst parts of FPTP like the trend to a two party system.
Stick with the real names of electoral systems!
This is in the context of US State Legislations, Ranked-Choice Voting is what most laws refer to them as.
In most contexts, we’re mostly talking about Single-Winner elections.
Sometimes, the same concept has different names to different people, there isn’t a name that’s more “real” than others.
In the context of electoral systems, “Congress” and “Senate” are multi-seat legislatures. Hence the talk about proportional representation, IE how many Americans vote Democrat vs how many Democrats get elected. Without that discussion you’ll never get a 3rd party elected.
The senate is voted only within a state, one senator at a time. the house of representatives again is done by states, but has a different number for each state.