West Virginia and Wyoming are the latest two states to ban ranked-choice voting (RCV), bringing the total number of states prohibiting the election system to 13. The battle over whether to implement or ban RCV has been ongoing for nearly a decade. However, more states have banned RCV or chosen not to use it than have implemented it.
RCV is an election process whereby if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then a runoff system is triggered. When voters cast their ballots, they rank each candidate in order of first-to-last.
If no candidate reaches the 50% plus-one vote threshold, then the candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes is eliminated, then second-choice votes from those who voted for the last-place finisher are reallocated among the remaining candidates and tallied – in a process that continues until a candidate receives the majority of the vote.
