https://www.npr.org/2024/11/08/nx-s1-5183210/nonpartisan-primary-ranked-choice-voting-results
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/results/2024/11/05/ranked-choice-voting-ballot-measures/
Alaska: had ranked-choice voting in place for certain statewide elections, but it looks like they’ve voted to get rid of it and go back to using the first-past-the-post system
Arizona: had a ballot question that would have created non-partisan open primaries, but voted it down
Colorado: had a ballot question that would have created top-four non-partisan open primaries AND ranked-choice voting in general elections, but voted it down
Idaho: same thing as Colorado, voted it down
Missouri: had a ballot question that would do two things: prohibit ranked-choice voting, and require voters to be US citizens. It passed.
Montana: had a ballot question that would have created top-four non-partisan open primaries, as well as a separate ballot question that would have “required a majority vote to win election”. Both were voted down.
Nevada: same thing as Colorado and Idaho, voted it down
Oregon: had a ballot question that would have created ranked-choice voting, but voted it down
South Dakota: had a ballot question that would have created a “top-two” primary election system, voted it down.
The only places where ranked-choice voting was adopted this year were at the city level, in Washington DC and a few mid-sized cities in the Midwest.
This is depressing. Ranked-choice voting is something that I’ve supported for, like, almost my entire adult life (EDIT: although I’ve also learned about score voting recently and now I think that would be better), but it doesn’t look like other Americans want it very much. Why did this happen? Am I out of touch?
In the case of the open primaries, if you’ve got a state where one party regularly gets 55-60 percent of the vote, open primaries just opens up the possibility of the minority party voters plus 10-ish percent of majority party voters with independent/antiestablishment streaks banding around a moderate/independent majority party candidate. Which threatens the majority party, so they campaign against it.
In the case of RCV, in primaries there’s often several antiestablishment candidates and one establishment candidate. FPTP ensures the establishment candidate wins whereas in RCV it means the antiestablishment vote could be great enough to filter to one winning candidate. In the general, the same principle applies as in open primaries, so once again the parties campaign against it.