RCV trends: Four states ban RCV in 2025, bringing the number of states with bans to 15.

(Okay idk why it says 15 up here then later says 16, somebody on that site probably didn’t update the title text)

As of April 30, five states had banned RCV in 2025, which brought the total number of states that prohibit RCV to 16.

  • Gov. Mark Gordon (Republican) signed HB 165 on March 18.
  • West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (Republican) signed SB 490 the March 19.
  • Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (Democrat) signed SB 6 into law on April 1.
  • North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong (Republican) signed HB 1297 on April 15.
  • Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican) signed HB 1706 which became law on April 17.

Six states banned RCV in 2024.

Why YSK: If you’re a US-American, its time to pay attention to State and Local politics instead of solely on the Federal. There is a trend in conservative jurisdictions to stop progress in making elecoral systems more fair. Use this opportunity as a rallying-cry to pass Ranked-Choice Voting in progressive jurisdictions, and hopefully everyone else takes notes. Sometimes, all you need is a few states adopting a law to become the catalyst for it to become the model for the entire country, for better or for worse. Don’t allow anti-RCV legislations to dominate, counter the propaganda with pro-RCV arguments. Time to turn the tide.

Edit: fixed formatting

Edit 2: Added in the map so you don’t have to click the link:

See the pattern? 🤔

  • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Tl;dr

    I was curious so I had to go look and see what states banned it. I was shocked, shocked I tell you to see the states that banned it are:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming
    

    Edit to add:

    • Chozo@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      As a Texan, it’s a relief to finally not be included on one of these lists for once.

    • Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club
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      1 day ago

      Why did you add like a hundred spaces in front of the list of states? That makes it a code block that requires tons of horizontal scrolling to read. I didn’t even recognize it as such at first.

      You know Lemmy has spoiler syntax, right? If that’s what you were going for?

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 days ago

      For those non-USians reading this, the pattern is: states which tend to vote Republican and thus have majority Republican governance. So called “red states”.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      You’d think it would be democrats worried about another Bernie Sanders coming along.

      What is it the republicans are worried about with RCV?

      • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The left wing vote is split, so the Republicans can win just by getting the largest number of votes with first-past-the-post.

      • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        I don’t know because they shouldn’t be.

        Republicans like Senator Tom Cotton and Donald Trump have garnered headlines for stating their opposition to ranked choice voting after election results didn’t turn out exactly as they hoped. Their preferred candidates, Sarah Palin in the House and Kelly Tshibaka in the Senate, didn’t win. Both are Republicans. So, they claim (loudly) that RCV is biased against Republicans or “rigged.”

      • ExtantHuman@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        The magas only gained their stranglehold on the party, despite being a minority, due to the neocons splitting their primary ballots.

        • ZephyrXero@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          They gained their stranglehold from 20+ years of systematic takeover. The Tea Party became MAGA. It didn’t happen over night