this post was submitted on 20 May 2025

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YSK that in 16 States in the USA has banned Ranked-Choice voting, including 5 that has just banned it in 2025, and 6 of those bans happened in 2024. (ballotpedia.org)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

205 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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? 🤔

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

🇦🇺 heh, amateurs... But seriously this is ridiculous, and straight up anti-democtatic. Single member first past the post is the worst voting system out there.

Inb4 they make mulit-member electorates winner-take-all (all seats to the party who got the plurality of votes).

This is THE fight USA. In my opinion, your ridiculous voting systems is probably why it's so easy to suppress you.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

First past the post voting is the sole issue that is keeping legitimately contending third parties off of our ballots.

Installing ranked choice voting (or one of its very close cousins) is the the number one reformation change that can be made to give the people their voices back. So of course, the powers that be are terrified of it... no surprises here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There are other issues, too, like North Dakota getting 2 Senators representing 783,926 people while California gets 2 Senators representing 38,940,231 people, or a ratio of almost 50 to 1.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Plenty of issues overall, sure, but I'm speaking specifically about the statistical inability to vote for third parties and have it mean anything.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

We could elect more third party members if we had more, and proportional, seats to elect progressives to.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The EU has a similar system:

Each EU member state gets ONE seat at the EU Council, regardless of population. This is comparable to the US Senate.
Differences in population size are accounted for by EU Parliament, where the number of MEPs (Members of European Parliament) a member state gets is determined by population. This is comparable to the US House of Representatives.
Finally there is the EU Commission which is the executive branch, comparable to the US president and cabinet.

The point of the EU Council/US Senate is to protect isolated regions from getting steamrolled by urban regions. Farmers are comparatively few relative to city industry workers, but any nation, union or federation is built on the back of farming. However, due to the distance and lack of interaction between city dwellers and rural dwellers, it's easy for city dwellers to grow disconnected from the reality of just how important the rural dimension is, and vote for laws that only suit the city. It is utterly necessary to create a system which balances the two. Otherwise you'd have, like, three states (New York, California, Texas) making all the decisions, with the other 47 states having to like it or lump it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

See, I disagree with the last sentiment, because the states with the majority of people SHOULD make the decisions. That's pretty much the definition of Democracy. A state with 1/500th of the people which drill oil and mine coal should not get to decide, for example, environmental policy and power infrastructure at the same level as the states with all of the people. The small state which are heavily indoctrinated to a specific religious doctrine should not dictate how we approach bodily autonomy. A small state which only gets news from radio and cable TV owned by a monopoly should not decide our foreign affairs.

They should fucking Lump it, and appreciate their autonomy on local economy. And I say that as somebody raised Rural and Religious.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

That's a rug pull, though. Both the American and EU states only agreed to join their respective unions in the first place on the promise that these systems of balances would give them this level of input on union policy. Without such assurances, what small nation would ever agree to become inevitably subordinate to the whims of a larger state? It would never happen, and the western world would remain fractured into small nation-states constantly warring with each other, failing to cooperate and probably getting picked off, one by one, by nations like China or Russia which have no such qualms about forcing a union through conquest.

No, these unions were negotiated in good faith and if we're unhappy with them now, then the answer should be secession. Brexit proved that nobody is forced to remain in the EU if they don't like the deal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

if we’re unhappy with them now, then the answer should be secession

Problems is, seccession is illegal in the US, and attempting secede is practically impossible (US Military), unless the federal government intentionally allows it to, unlawfully, happen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I assure you there are more than enough reasons for cooperation and collectivism without being disproportionately represented.

A history book eould tell you war is omnipresent throughout all of human society and so is greed. The larger collectives prevent both.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There was a STRONG effort to ban (or at least end) RCV here in Alaska, and it failed, but barely. They even did the super misleading wording, too, in order to make it unclear if the measure banned RCV or supported it.

I was always so confused by the adamant support that was being shown by general people, though. Like, I get why both Dems and Republicans would be against it: they want to be the only two players in the game. But why any general people would want less choice is beyond me. And it's funny, because the staunchest proponents (at least where I am) were conservatives, when (again, where I live) RCV basically drove out the Democrats. There were Progressives, there were "centrists," there were Libertarians, and then there was Republican/MAGA. Dems didn't even get enough support to be on the ballot. So their hated Libs were wiped off the board entirely for being so ill-liked, but they want to get rid of that system? I just don't get it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People are stupid. They think RCV is "too confusing"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I feel like it can kind of be confusing to understand how the process works for it.

But it is not even remotely confusing as to what you do. Choose, from most to least, who you want. It's that simple. You want to get into how those votes are tallied, do a little dive, there's plenty of videos very simply explaining it. If you don't, and just want to be able to go vote? Just go vote. If even ranking them is too complicated because you have a worm in your brain, just choose one and ignore everything else.

It might be complicated to tally, but it is not complicated to do. It's just people being duped by the Big 2 parties to not want choices.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

Anything but real democracy.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The fact that Americans banned it, means it good for the people.

[–] tempest 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Lol home of the free, what a shit hole

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nothing screams "democracy" like explicitely banning a voting system

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (9 children)

well, to be fair, shitty electoral systems should be banned, like FPTP, because they aren't representative. what's happening here is sadly the opposite.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Well, you know its the right thing if they are banning it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Don’t worry. Voting altogether will be next.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

This is democrats and Republicans not wanting people to vote for their candidate of choice because they have to constantly play the game of the lesser of two evils. They wanna keep power

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Not even one state that has banned it is run by Democrats.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (14 children)

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.

5/6 are Republican shitheads however.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

This is the reality of the 'both sides...' arguments, yes both sides are guilty of doing despicable things but the scales are very heavily tipped in one direction.
Unfortunately with how far americans have legislated and tightened the stranglehold on control of the 'democratic' process, i dont see this ever being undone... 'willingly'...

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

Your right about that, it is a fair thing to point out. However, I will mention that the democratic party has a hostile past to 3rd parties where they would do things like suing them to get them off ballots.

Here is one example for reference: https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-lawsuits-voting-north-carolina-raleigh-48f1e61c1988c7083edcdc7bb1eace4a

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago

Ranked choice should be the standard

[–] [email protected] 128 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (14 children)

Tl;dr

I was curious so I had to go look and see what states banned it. I was shocked, shocked I tell you to see the states that banned it are:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming

Edit to add:

[–] [email protected] 65 points 3 days ago (3 children)

As a Texan, it's a relief to finally not be included on one of these lists for once.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Don't be too relieved. There's a bill banning RCV that passed the Texas Senate and is being considered by the House: https://www.billtrack50.com/billdetail/1751192

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 days ago

[yeehaws sadly]

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 days ago

We voted for it at the county level here in CA. That was back in 2020. San Diego county voted to use RCV, as did several other counties in CA. The county registrar of voters is refusing to change from FPTP, and is waiting to see how the lawsuits turn out.

Even if your state hasn't banned it, they will fight you tooth and nail not to change it.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (24 children)

At what point is a democracy not a democracy any more?

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Is anybody surprised that you could replace the orange with red and have a pretty accurate election map?

What are you guys scared of? Democracy?

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 3 days ago (2 children)

In MO. Voted on it last year. The ballot was intentionally worded to be misleading.

It said each person can only cast one vote. Making it sound like it was to prevent people from voting twice even though that person as already not allowed.

So dumb.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What is a ban going to do.

It just changes the language of the acceptance bill

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago

Pre-empts local laws preventing sub-divisions of the State (Cities, Towns) from enacting their own election system that would use "ranking" as a method of determining candidates winning or losing.

Renaming the system will not bypass the ban.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Love how it's the cousin fucking states and the flyover Midwest.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Americans complain about the two party system and do absolutely nothing to change that. It's like watching a soap opera but everyone's fell of the horse and lost their memory.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago

It's almost like those in power make the laws that are used to elect those in power 🤔