It's Official: Both Parties Oppose Ranked Choice Voting

On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee is scheduled to meet, during which its membership body will vote on a proposal to ban ranked choice voting in the party’s 2028 nomination proceedings—even in states where voters have made the reform law.

The party is getting encouragement to do this, but not from its members. It is being cheered on by people on the other side of the political aisle.

In an op-ed in the conservative-leaning National Review, Save Our States executive director and ranked choice voting critic Trent England makes the case that the Democratic Party should do what Republicans have done in several states and approve a ranked choice voting ban.

“This is causing an understandable uproar, since progressive and socialist Democrats are the ones pushing RCV around the country,” England writes.

“The DNC would be right to take a stand against it, since RCV — like many other ‘election reforms’ — makes the election process more difficult, less meaningful, and harder to trust.”

England writes a lot about the added complexity under ranked choice voting compared to first-past-the-post. He talks about how ballots will come with more instruction and how voting will be slower because voters rank candidates instead of just choosing a single person.

He talks about the phenomenon of ballot exhaustion, which happens when all of the candidates a voter has ranked have been eliminated and thus their ballot doesn’t count toward the final results (something studies have shown represent a small fraction of ballots under RCV).

“Perhaps this is why 19 states have laws banning RCV in their elections,” England writes. However, he doesn’t mention that all 19 are Republican-controlled states that have no history of using ranked choice voting in their elections.

Thus, the bans do not come from any experience with the reform. They exist simply because of a common position among Republican officials to oppose ranked choice voting. A position many Democratic leaders and insiders also share.

The DNC ranked choice voting ban was proposed and approved by the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) in May. It amends the stipulations for delegate selection and allocation in two specific ways:

1. Ranked choice voting would be prohibited in presidential primaries and caucuses; and
2. In states where ranked choice voting is law, the party will only consider first-choice totals for delegate selection and allocation.

So, even in jurisdictions where voters have approved ranked choice voting—like in Maine and with 73% support in DC—the full use of it will be prohibited by the party, rendering it effectively pointless in presidential preference elections.

If approved by the entire DNC body, the ban will mirror the ranked choice voting ban already adopted by the Republican National Committee.

DNC Could Ban Ranked Choice Voting in 2028

Maine and Washington, D.C. may still use ranked ballots, but Democrats would allocate delegates as though voters never ranked anyone beyond first place.

Independent Voter NewsShawn Griffiths

The argument by those pushing the ban, like RBC member Frank Leone, is ranked choice voting is incompatible with the party’s delegate selection process because it is used in single-winner elections.

Presidential primaries and caucuses are not single-winner. Party rules dictate that any candidate who gets over 15% of the vote in a presidential preference election—be it a primary or caucus—can add to their delegate count.

However, while the ban initially flew under the radar, it has garnered more attention over the last couple of weeks, especially from long-time reform advocates like Kyle Bailey, who points out that there are multiple ways to use ranked choice voting.

For example, any candidate who falls under 15% in an election can be eliminated and their voters’ next applicable choices would count toward how many delegates the remaining candidates get rather than not counting at all.

Six state Democratic Parties have already used ranked choice voting in presidential cycles: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, and Wyoming. This means the RBC has already approved the use of ranked choice voting systems.

Its members did not determine the reform to be incompatible in 2020 and 2024.

Further, former FairVote CEO and President of Expand Democracy Rob Richie points out on IVN that ranked choice voting is popular among Democratic voters (and not just progressives) who have used the reform.

“A recent University of New Hampshire poll found that among registered Democrats in Maine, the state’s RCV law is supported by an overwhelming 84% to 6% margin,” Richie writes. Yet party insiders are still pushing the ban anyway.

Reports on the proposal, including on IVN, have put more focus on it, which may be why the DNC chair removed the public RBC meeting on Thursday and replaced it with a private, closed-door dinner.

“As a member of the DNC Executive Committee, I cannot over-stress my disappointment in turning an open debate into a closed door session,” Christine Pelosi tweeted.

“I will take the fight for ranked choice voting to the Executive Committee and will join in the floor fight on Saturday as these are the only options available. We need radical transparency to restore trust. This ain’t it!”

Republicans like to call ranked choice voting a “Democrat reform” (as well as a “communist” and “socialist” reform), but Democratic officials and party insiders have a history of opposing the reform as well.

Democrats in Nevada, for example, opposed a citizen-led ballot measure in 2024 that offered both nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting. They made the same argument as England that the voting method was too complex.

Notably, surveys in jurisdictions that use ranked choice voting find that most voters say it is simple, fair, and easy. What’s more, once they try it, they tend to support continued use.

In Redondo Beach, California, 61% of voters supported ranked choice voting after first using it in 2024. A 2024 poll across San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro found that 70% of voters said they wanted to keep using it as well.

These voters represent more than what Trent England calls an “RCV-supporting fringe.”

The Democratic majority in the Colorado Legislature amended an election administration bill that same year to make it harder to adopt ranked choice voting at the state level. Like the DNC, they did this without voter input.

In Maine, Democratic officials like Governor Janet Mills and former Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap opposed implementation and expansion of ranked choice voting. In DC, the Democratic Party sued to block Initiative 83, the 2024 measure approved by 73% of voters.

Why Trump Really Hates Alaska’s Ranked Choice Voting

President Trump called Alaska’s ranked choice voting system “disastrous” and “very fraudulent” on Friday. He gave his “complete and total support” to the repeal effort heading to Alaska’s 2026 ballot.

Independent Voter NewsChad Peace

Now, the DNC looks like it may move forward with a ban supported by President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It is supported by GOP-aligned megadonors like Elon Musk, who has committed over a million dollars to repeal the nonpartisan election system in Alaska.

It is a system that includes ranked choice voting in the general election.

The reason both parties oppose ranked choice voting, as revealed by party insiders speaking anonymously, goes beyond perceived issues of complexity or transparency or voter confidence.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, opposition to nonpartisan election reforms, whether it is all-candidate open primaries or ranked choice voting, has to do with reduced certainty over election outcomes.

Party insiders know how to win under the current system. The elections are more predictable, party leaders have more control over candidates, and aligned-special interests have more impact with every dollar they spend.

Nonpartisan election reforms have a documented history of making elections less predictable and more competitive. The parties don’t like that—even if these reforms have support from a majority of their voters.