A Fairer Vote: Why Ranked-Choice Voting Lets Every Voice Count

The Time Has Come

Program note: Dr. Debra Shushan, Middle East expert at Georgetown University, will be interviewing me on her Substack pod, The Debrief, about the influence of Dark Money in US elections at 1:30 pm on Tuesday, 3/24. Substack will send an email at that time with the link.

After having just lived through a primary election in my own state where most of the federal and state races had four or more people in the race, Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) is now more interesting than ever to most voters.

I cannot tell you how many voters after elections have said to me, “I wish we had RCV here.” Most voters do have a “number one candidate” and a “backup” they could easily live with as their representation. The time to address fairness in elections is coming, if not already here.

Imagine voting in any election where your second or third choice still matters, where a spoiler candidate doesn’t steal the outcome, and where the winner reflects a broad spectrum of support. In elections where there are ten ca…