Ranked Choice Voting Faces Cloudy Future After Election Setbacks

In the District of Columbia, voters overwhelmingly supported a ballot measure to establish ranked choice voting for elections beginning in 2026 and to open the primary process to voters who are not affiliated with a party.

The local political party leadership campaigned against the measure, as was the case in other places where ranked choice voting was on the ballot. But district voters, familiar with packed Democratic primary ballots where winners often fail to get majority support, adopted the measure with more than 72% of the vote. The district’s party affiliation overwhelmingly leans Democratic.

It was a sign of grassroots work for the past five years, said Porter Bowman, volunteer communications director for the Yes on 83 Campaign.

“People are not OK with the status quo,” he said in an interview. “Folks were looking to city leadership and the state of politics in D.C. and wanting voters to have more choice and to be more involved in the process.”

The city council must still implement the voting system. But Republicans now control both chambers of Congress; that could put the system at risk, because Congress limits the district’s autonomy.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that would have prohibited the district from using ranked choice voting in local elections. He also introduced a separate bill that would have prohibited states from using the voting system in federal elections.

“As usual, DC is running toward something that others have overwhelmingly rejected,” he wrote on Instagram over the weekend.

Lawler wrote he will continue to push his legislation to prevent the adoption of “this convoluted voting system” when Congress comes back to work this month. He’s previously pointed to delayed results in New York City’s elections using ranked choice voting and what he said was the confusion that came with it.

FairVote’s Otis said Lawler’s legislation would be “shortsighted,” and pointed to how Republicans have benefited from the system.

She cited Virginia, where the state Republican Party used it to nominate Gov. Glenn Youngkin in a 2021 state convention. Youngkin had a plurality of votes among a crowded field after the first vote; he won the nomination after six rounds of counting with 55% of the vote. Even so, Youngkin vetoed ranked choice voting legislation in April.

Leaders in several Virginia localities said in the past week that they’re considering using ranked choice voting in the near future after Arlington County successfully implemented the method.

In 2024, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma enacted measures that banned the use of ranked choice voting — a burgeoning trend in Republican-led states, reacting to key GOP losses in Alaska and Maine in recent years.

Otis said her group is moving ahead with campaigns to bring ranked choice voting to local elections in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Boston and Denver in the coming years.

Matt Vasilogambros is a reporter for @stateline_newsThe article was originally appeared in Stateline. It has been updated to reflect that Republicans have won control of both chambers of Congress.