Ranked Choice Voting - An Easy Answer to our Current Political Problem
Jul 17, 2025
The great experiment of America started with the Declaration of Independence, July 4th 1776. One of my favorite bits?
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Young America reflected a new stance on government and individual freedoms and liberties (scandal noted) and while the colonies were united in opposition to the king, the colonies themselves were not nearly as intertwined as the states today. Most of their economies were localized. Forgive the econ 101 lesson, but it's important framing for our chat today.
A craftsman skilled in their specialty made things better not only for themselves, but for everyone in their community. Say a good carpenter can craft 10 chairs in a day, and a good baker 50 loaves of bread. But, if the carpenter wants to make their own bread, it takes all day, their starter kind of sucks, and it comes our lopsided, kinda burnt and generally gross. And the baker decides to make their own chair, it takes all day, it's uneven, uncomfortable, and wobbly to boot.
It's clear each is better off sticking to their area of expertise. As a result each have more wealth; higher quality goods, and more free time, because of efficient trade.
Everyone is better off specializing, and trusting other specialists as well. In our newly founded United States, there was a new area to specialize in - the craft of laws and governance. In the same way you benefit by trading with baker for your bread, you benefit by trusting your local representative to look out for your local interests and issues in the government.
It was, like any other, a specific job with specific skills, and everyone benefits from specialization and trade.
Over time, productivity continued to increase, as did specialization. Now you could choose to buy bread from a number of bakers, or work with a number of carpenters, or perhaps work with an apothecary who had experience curing a specific ailment or disease. Yet, as competition bred excellence among all of these roles, there was one role that escaped the need to compete or evolve.
Your local represented elective.
Rather than have your choice of dozens, or today, hundreds or thousands, of options for any particular good or service, you had, and still mostly have, two.
John Adams warned us:
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."
Why is it that just about every role in society improved by increased choice and competition to evolve and grow to better match demand - doctors, dentists, therapists, mechanics, repairmen, painters, etc. - yet your local elected representative still only comes in one of two flavors?
Many argue that a two party system is an inevitability. A shortcoming in the Great Experiment. But it wasn't inevitable. And it still isn't. It is a relatively easy problem to fix, but the inertia and intrenchment of two parties prevents this fairly straightforward solution from being implemented. Those in power tend to want to stay there, and our civil servants have strayed quite far from the modest and noble intentions their roles originated from.
The solution?
Ranked Choice Voting.
The concept is fairly straightforward. Instead of simply voting for one candidate, you rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, etc.). If no candidate gets a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to voters’ next choices. This process continues until one candidate has a majority. Unlike the traditional “single vote, highest total wins” system, ranked choice aims to ensure the winner has broader support.
This wasn't a well known concept when the founding fathers first drafted the constitution, otherwise they almost certainly would have made it a part of the constitution to protect against the two party system about which they warned. It immediately defuses the danger of third party candidates, and encourages more active participation from potential candidates because a vote for them does not necessarily hand the election over to a single party competitor. It provides you with more choice in their elected representatives, and enables the world of politics to more closely match the choice we have across any other domain of our society.
It won't be easy to make happen, there is a lot of established power and money tied up in the status quo. Though, anyone who is paying attention can see the increasing polarization of our current two party system, and the backlash effect between them, will soon doom us all.
I've included some resources below where you can learn more. But if you take away only one thing from this, if/when you have the opportunity to vote to enable ranked choice voting in your community, be it the local, state, or federal level, DO IT. This is one of the few areas where your simple vote carries a huge weight, and, with the right focus of effort can totally change our government and it's accountability to the people, as well as individual representatives connections to their constituents and communities.
Resources:
PS - Major props to Arlington County for being one of the first to adopt RCV for their local elections!
