Editor's Note: This piece originally published on FairVote's website. It has been republished on IVN with permission from the organization. 

In late 2024, the Herbert Institute at Utah Valley University released two reports on Utah’s ranked choice voting (RCV) pilot program. In the reports, Professors Alan Parry and John Kidd and co-authors Michael Erickson and Addison Stott capture the high level of support for RCV among Utah voters, as well as the strong foundation that RCV has in mathematics. 

The first Herbert Institute report, An Evaluation of the Ranked Choice Voting Pilot in Utah, analyzes survey data from the 2021 and 2023 local elections. According to the data, significant majorities of Utah voters enjoyed using RCV, found RCV easy to use, found instructions to be clear, were more likely to vote for their preferred candidate under RCV, and wanted to continue using RCV. Voters’ opinions on RCV were mostly stable between 2021 and 2023:

1. In 2023, 94% of voters in RCV cities were satisfied with the election method they used. This is up from 89% in 2021.

2. In 2023, 82% of voters said RCV was easy to use. This is statistically the same as 81% in 2021.

3. In 2023, 67% of voters in RCV cities said they were more likely to vote for their favorite candidate [than in single-choice elections]. This is up from 60% in 2021.

4. In 2023, 60% of Utah voters wanted to keep or expand RCV. 39% thought RCV should be used in more Utah elections including statewide offices, while 21% wanted to keep it for local elections only. This remains a clear majority, but is slightly down from the 65% of voters who wanted to keep or expand RCV in 2021. At that time, 46% wanted to expand RCV; 19% wanted to keep it for local elections only. 

In 2019, Payson and Vineyard became the first Utah cities to pilot ranked choice voting. In 2021, the legislature expanded the state’s RCV pilot program, making it easier for any municipality to use RCV for local elections. In the most recent local election cycle (2023),12 cities opted in – including the capital and largest city, Salt Lake City. A large draw of the program is that RCV offers an alternative to two-round elections; participating cities can save time and money by eliminating a low-turnout preliminary election and identifying a majority winner in a single election in November

In this report, the authors recommend the pilot program be extended:

"Ultimately, the primary conclusion that can be made is that while there appears to be generally positive feelings towards RCV, more information and time are needed to draw accurate results about RCV and Utah voters’ feelings toward it… Mathematically, trends are very rarely accurately observed over two timepoints."

The next report, Addressing Concerns About Instant Runoff Voting, evaluates RCV from the lens of game theory and “fairness criteria.” The authors’ main takeaway is that no voting method is perfect, but RCV is significantly better than plurality voting:

"In general, on almost every mathematical consideration, [RCV] fares better than plurality… Mathematicians who are informed on the mathematics of voting seem to agree."

Relatedly, since no voting method “is void of some kind of logical issue… one has to balance the potential failings of each system with its benefits.” For example, the authors say that there is no clear evidence that ballot error rates differ between RCV and single-choice voting, but “if a tiny increase in error is coupled with a large increase in voters who play a role in deciding the representative, that is still a large net positive increase in voter influence.” 

The authors conclude that “opponents of plurality, whatever their preferred voting method is, should support the move to [RCV] as part of pushing for a larger discussion, since [RCV] appears currently to have the strongest support of any alternative voting method.”

We thank the authors – Alan Parry, John Kidd, Michael Erickson, and Addison Stott – for their timely analysis as the pilot program nears its expiration. Utah legislators must act this year to empower cities to continue using RCV – and other cities to opt in – beyond 2025.