Lawmakers in Washington State and Wyoming are taking two radically different approaches to Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Washington policymakers are considering HB 1448 to allow local RCV, while Wyoming lawmakers have introduced HB 165 to prohibit Ranked Choice Voting. The policy of RCV was thoroughly routed at the ballot box last year across the country with one narrow exception.
Last November voters rejected Ranked Choice Voting in Idaho (70% no), Oregon (58% no), Colorado (54% no), and Nevada (53% no). RCV was narrowly retained by Alaska voters by a mere 743 votes out of 321,203 cast. Similar to the Wyoming ban proposal, 68% of Missouri voters last year approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting Ranked Choice Voting.
Let’s look first at Washington’s HB 1448. According to the bill report:
“Permits the use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in elections for offices in counties, cities, towns, school districts, fire districts, and port districts, and establishes certain requirements for RCV ballot design and vote tabulation. Establishes an RCV work group to advise and aid the Secretary of State when developing implementation and support materials for local governments that enact RCV.”
Among those testifying in opposition to WA’s HB 1448 was the Secretary of State’s Office. As reported by Center Square:
“Brian Hatfield, legislative director for Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, spoke out against HB 1448, saying he hoped the committee 'will take into consideration the additional expense, the logistical problems and the confusion that would result in moving from our current system which relies on simple addition to a system that relies on an algorithm.’
He called ranked choice voting a ‘regressive move’ and noted that ‘adopting a more complicated way to vote is highly likely to disenfranchise people who can’t easily adjust to changing rules. This includes new American citizens and people who are learning-challenged.’”
The opposition of Secretary of State Steve Hobbs is no surprise. Last year Mountain States Policy Center interviewed Secretary Hobbs on this topic. He told us:
“Ranked-choice voting adds a layer of complexity to voting that threatens to disenfranchise people who aren’t experts at the process. This includes people living with developmental disabilities – such as my son – for whom choosing one candidate is more straightforward than figuring out how to rank a list of them. Additionally, it can be a challenge for newly-naturalized citizens to adapt to American elections. Converting some elections to ranked-choice voting would increase the obstacles to exercising their rights as Americans. Top-two primaries present none of these challenges. You pick your favorite, then you send in your ballot. That’s something people can easily grasp. I stand firmly behind Top Two and encourage other states to learn from our usage of it.”
Secretary Hobbs also wrote a statewide op-ed last year with Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton outlining their concerns with RCV (“Ranked-choice voting sounds good. But here’s why it would disenfranchise voters”).
Experimenting with RCV in Washington isn’t new. This is from a 2009 blog post by the Washington Secretary of State’s Office discussing why 71% of Pierce County voters repealed Ranked Choice Voting after using the system only once:
“It has always been kinda confusing to explain, but advocates believed it would be extremely popular and then possibly catch on elsewhere. Its biggest usage was last year when a new County Executive and other offices were filled this way, running in tandem with the regular state primary and general elections. It went downhill from there. Voters participating in an auditor’s survey said by a 2-to-1 margin that they didn’t like the system. And this year, it was back on the ballot –and voters have thrown it out by a 71-29 margin.”
As for Wyoming’s HB 165, the text is short and to the point:
“Nothing in this election code shall be deemed to authorize any election in Wyoming to be conducted through ranked choice voting. Any existing or future ordinance enacted or adopted by a county, municipality or any other governmental entity that purports to authorize ranked choice voting in violation of this subsection is void. As used in this subsection, ‘ranked choice voting; means a voting method that allows voters to rank candidates for an office in order of preference and has ballots cast to be tabulated in multiple rounds following the elimination of a candidate until the candidate or candidates with the most votes are declared winners, or any other system that allows a voter to vote for more than the number of candidates permitted to fill a particular office.”
It's not often we’ll quote a California governor for policy advice, but former Governor Jerry Brown said this when vetoing a ranked-choice voting bill in 2016:
“In a time when we want to encourage more voter participation, we need to keep voting simple. Ranked-choice voting is overly complicated and confusing. I believe it deprives voters of genuinely informed choice.”
We’ll soon see what decisions lawmakers in Washington and Wyoming make on their very different RCV bills.