Today, lawmakers in Harrisburg heard commentary on rank choice voting in a State Government Committee Hearing. Ranked choice voting is an election reform policy growing in popularity across the United States— with its fair share of skeptics and supporters.

“You really just vote for the candidates you like, in the order that you like them, without regard to their popularity,” Armin Samii said, founder of rcvis.com and volunteer with March on Harrisburg. Rcvis.com is software to help present ranked choice voting results.

In current Pennsylvania elections, voters pick one candidate per race.

If ranked choice voting were introduced, you, well, rank the candidates. Who do you really want to win? Put them first. Second choice gets second place, and so on.

“People are hesitant before they try it, but once they use it, voters overwhelmingly understand it and overwhelmingly like it,” Samii said.

Votes are then counted in elimination rounds.

If there’s three candidates for a mayor race, all the first choice votes are counted. The candidate with the least first choice votes gets eliminated. The people who voted for the eliminated candidate, now can have their vote assigned to the second choice they picked on their ballot.

For example, you really want to vote for John Doe for mayor, but Jane Doe and Jim Doe are more popular. And you really, really hate Jim.

 

  Kara Jeffers

You can follow your convictions and put John as your first choice, but then pick Jane as your second. You can choose to not assign any rank to Jim (so your ballot would never be counted towards him).

Ranked choice vote supporters say this gives more power to third party candidates while still giving all voters a say on the more popular candidates.

“If the candidate you like the most isn't going to win— maybe they're fringe, maybe they're third party, maybe you're an independent— you can still vote for that person first,” Samii said. "And if they don't win, you have a backup choice.”

For example, in 2024, a green party voter could have put Jill Stein as their first choice, but Donald Trump as their second.

“We recognize that Pennsylvania is not ready to do this at a state wide level right now,” Samii said. "What we hope to see is a local options bill, that lets cities and counties opt in to using ranked choice voting if it's right for their city.”

Rep. Chris Rabb plans to introduce that local control bill. He says lawmakers can learn from other states, and personalize the policy.

“We can look and say ‘Okay well, we don’t like that. Alaska didn’t release their results on election night,' Our statute doesn’t have to do that,” Rabb said. "This is what the best of us do in public office. We don’t assume we have invented the wheel. We listen and engage."

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers raised caution that ranked choice voting can be complicated and confusing. Rep. Carol Hill-Evans (D-York), majority chair of the State Government committee, shared how it took several different conversations and explanations prior to the hearing for her to fully wrap her head around the concept.

“For me it’s visual. I have to see it to understand it,” Hill-Evans said. “How long would it take for Pennsylvania to understand it and get on board with it, especially given the fact that so many of our residents are aging? and it’s probably something more difficult.. they might not be able to understand."

“I’m not sure if a lot of voters say ’This is my first choice, this is my second choice, this is my third— I don’t think people think that way,” Rep. Brad Roae (R-Crawford) said, the minority chair of the State Government committee.

Voter knowledge about the process impacts how and if they make mistakes on their ballots. The change would require new software and operations at county election offices.

“The state election officials, the county ones, I mean— they're struggling just to comply with the current laws we have now,” Roae said. "To have a major change like ranked choice voting. I just think that's, you know, really asking for trouble.”

Testifiers today noted that voter mistakes and system errors already exist in current election structure. There was little discussion on the legitimacy/fairness of ranked choice voting as an election style.