With the new year, begins a new legislative session. Legislators have the opportunity to use this time to introduce bills to empower voters in their state. Ranked choice voting (RCV) continues to expand as new bills have been introduced in the Missouri, Virginia, Indiana and Utah legislatures.
On Jan. 3 Missouri State Representative Dan Stacey introduced HB 1346: Requires all state and federal offices to use ranked choice voting, adding one new section relating to ranked choice voting. The provisions in the bill would become effective on Jan. 1, 2019.
On Jan. 8 Delegate Nick Freitas introduced HB 553: Elections for certain offices; ranked choice voting in Virginia. The bill requires members of the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, the general assembly, governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general to be elected by ranked choice voting.
Another state where RCV was recently introduced was in Indiana on Jan 9. State Senator Mark Stoops proposed SB 400: Ranked Voting, which permits municipalities to implement ranked choice voting for all of the municipality’s elected offices and establishes the procedure for voters to rank candidates in order of preference.
In Utah, HB 35: Municipal instant runoff voting pilot project is a bill that creates a pilot project to permit a municipality to conduct nonpartisan races using instant runoff voting also known as RCV. The bill also includes standards and requirements for evaluating voter’s ballot choices.
We anticipate even more bills being brought forth this year to advance ranked choice voting in states across the country.
Check out the FairVote map to tracking pending RCV legislation in your state here.
Editor's Note: This election reform update, written by Myeisha Boyd, originally published on FairVote's blog, and has been modified slightly for publication on IVN.