In 2021, I had my first experience with ranked choice voting (RCV), along with tens of thousands of Utah voters. The RCV ballot arrived in the mail along with some instructions for how to fill it out. The process of ranking candidates was intuitive and the instructions made filling out a RCV ballot relatively straightforward. It was a new experience ranking candidates rather than simply choosing one, but it was not dramatically different.

Opinions are mixed on the use of RCV. In the Utah House of Representatives, legislation has been introduced that would repeal Utah’s Municipal Alternate Voting Methods Pilot Program – the program that allows cities to choose to use RCV for municipal elections, if they desire to do so. The pilot program is currently slated to sunset in 2026, after two more municipal elections (this year and in 2025). The bill, HB 171, would cut that short.

Last year, Sutherland Institute published a report about the potential benefits and potential drawbacks of RCV in Utah. The report was based on analysis of RCV as a voting method, voter experience with RCV from a public opinion poll conducted after the 2021 municipal elections, and the published scholarly research regarding RCV. The conclusion of that report stated:

Based on the evidence, it seems prudent to continue with the municipal election pilot project to its 2026 completion date. This will likely allow more Utah voters to gain experience with and familiarity with RCV, as more municipalities participate in the pilot program over time. This additional experience should produce more and better evidence about RCV in Utah and its potential impact.

The broad state of the evidence on RCV has not dramatically changed since the publication of that report. While a few new elections were conducted in 2022 under RCV – Alaska’s Congressional elections, for example – the results of those elections seemed to be driven by the various candidates’ willingness (or their unwillingness) to run a campaign designed to win a RCV election instead of a traditional election. Certainly if candidates choose a flawed campaign strategy for a RCV election the results may be atypical for any given election. But that is more a reflection of a candidate’s poor choice of election strategy rather than of RCV as election policy.

In any case, the evidence in 2023 supports Sutherland’s conclusion that allowing the Municipal Alternate Voting Methods Pilot Project to run through to its 2026 completion date is sound policy as a means to gather additional evidence on the benefits and drawbacks of RCV. According to Utah voters’ experience with RCV as reported in public opinion polling, most RCV voters had a positive voting experience and remained highly confident that their votes would be counted fairly. There doesn’t seem to be significant risk from continuing a limited RCV pilot.

Using RCV to elect the members of my city council in 2021 was an interesting experience. The jury is out regarding whether RCV is a better voting system than Utah’s current general approach to the ballot. But that only points to the conclusion that continuing the RCV pilot project makes sense.