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YOU get to sample how three different alternative voting systems work right now and help our committee measure results from the perspective of each.
Take these two very short polls by December 19th to participate in our analysis! We’ll share our results!
- Your Favorite ice cream
- When to celebrate Christmas
More Background: When Zohran Mamdani won the NYC Mayoral primary against the oligarch’s favorite Andrew Cuomo and a famous pop cultural character, many people credited the Rank Choice Voting system that was used, which gave Zohran more of a chance (along with a very effective outreach canvassing effort).
What IS Rank Choice Voting and what are its benefits?
Rank Choice Voting (RCV) can consist of several different variations including Ranked Robin Voting and STAR Voting, each slightly different and capable of offering different results.
In order to best understand not only how these systems work, but how they FEEL to voters, and how their outcomes might differ, the Women, Money & Democracy Committee is asking WILPF members to take a simple poll that we’ll compute in three ways, to measure how folks felt about the systems and if the outcomes differed significantly from system to system.
Benefits of RCV have been reported as these:
- Allows for a wider variety of candidates, including those without big money behind them.
- Because voters can rank their preferences, no vote is wasted -- if your favored candidate does not receive enough votes, your ‘second’ choice, and other choices, all get counted and given a chance to win.
- The excitement of having an ‘instant runoff’ system could draw more voters, even among usually disinterested or disengaged voters, increasing voter turnout. That’s good for democracy!
- Because more candidates can be included in the race, there is the opportunity to focus more on issues and positions than personalities.
- Candidates in ranked choice voting races are inclined to be less negative with fewer attack ads, in a more collaborative spirit – although this is not always the case, as we saw in NYC.
Why this is important for WILPF specifically: Voting reform allows for women to have to ability for more representation in government than we have now. Allowing more candidates, and lower income candidates, to be viable would also allow more women candidates to be viable, and have more of a shot at getting elected. It has the potential to break the strangle hold of a bent 2-Party system.
A counterpoint is that much more public education is needed in order to make sure lower income voters understand the process and can smoothly participate. This means beginning now to normalize the conversation about alternative voting systems in our communities, and learning more about them ourselves.
Where it’s used: Rank Choice Voting has been successfully used in Maine and Alaska elections. As of April 2025, RCV is used for local elections in 47 US cities, including Salt Lake City and Seattle. It’s also been used by political parties in party-run primaries and nominating conventions. It’s also known as Instant Runoff Elections (IRE). But the perceptions that alternative voting systems are just ‘too complicated’ stalls adoption at the state and local levels.
This year the organization Fair Vote reported some pertinent investigations among voters who had recently experienced rank Choice Elections in Alaska, Maine, New York City, Charlottesville NC, California’s Bay Area, Portland OR, Utah, Boulder CO, Virginia, Minneapolis MN and Santa Fe NM. Exit polling of voters in these areas reveals faborable responses to rank choice ballots by margins ranging from 56 to 90 percent. They found such ballots anything but “too complicated”!
Women, Money & Democracy at WILPF US is taking on Alternative Voting systems as a short term project, led by a new member, Heather Vogler, a college student from Arizona who’s passionate about voting fairness. Heather encourages ALL WILPF US Members to take the two short polls (above) by Dec. 19th and will compile the results and share them.
If YOU are interested in alternative voting systems and want to be part of our project at W$D, please contact us at wmad@wilpfus.org.
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