Despite disastrous outcomes in Alaska, Maine, and multiple U.S. municipalities due to ranked-choice voting, Utah is considering legislation to follow their steps.
House Bill 205 passed the Utah House of Representatives on Feb. 17. It now awaits a vote in the Senate. The measure would allow local jurisdictions to switch from a winner-take-all to a ranked-choice voting system for state and federal primary elections.
In such a system, voters would have to rank up to five candidates for each election in order of preference. If a candidate does not win more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round of tabulation, then an “instant runoff” would be held between the two highest vote-getters.
Votes for the candidates who didn’t make it to the runoff would be reallocated to the two top vote-getters according to voters’ rankings until one of the top two vote-getters reaches a majority. As such, candidates could no longer win with a simple plurality of votes.
House Bill 205 comes after local officials have reported multiple problems with enacting the state’s RCV pilot program in county elections. Because of the complicated nature of the tabulation process with RCV, many ballots have failed to be counted.
For example, 58 percent of ballots were either discarded or spoiled in 2021’s Genola City Council Race, often because those voters failed to rank a second choice, according to the Election Transparency Initiative. Ballots with only one candidate selected for a position are “exhausted,” or thrown out, if the
