Ranked choice voting (RCV) — also called instant runoff voting — is at the center of a bill to ban the voting system that has been gaining popularity around the country.
The Senate Bill, SB 175, would effectively “prohibit the use of ranked choice voting” in the state — with some exceptions, like the bill not applying to military personnel deployed overseas.
“This Code section shall not apply to electors who are entitled to vote absentee ballots under the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, 52 U.S.C. Section 20301, et seq., as amended,” reads the proposed SB 175.
The bill, sponsored by 11 Republicans, was scheduled for a vote by the Georgia House subcommittee on elections on Tuesday, March 18. Over 1,200 people wrote to the subcommittee asking the representatives to vote against it.
The vote ultimately did not happen, leaving the status of RCV still in limbo.
RCV works by having voters rank their preferred candidates in order and goes through multiple rounds of voting until a candidate reaches about the 50 percent threshold. Proponents argue this would lead to less partisan elections, save money from expensive and time-consuming runoffs, and give voters greater choice over the gradient of candidates.
Ironically, Georgia is one of seven states that still requires a runoff if no candidate in a general election gets over 50 percent of the vote — meaning RCV could especially speed up Georgia’s runoff elections that currently take place 28 days after a general election if a runoff is needed.
An attempt to ban RCV rose last year when Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, along with Senator Randy Robertson, took a stance against the voting method, claiming it would confuse voters and “hinder the faith” in election integrity.
Ben Rowley, the statewide organizer for Better Ballot Georgia, said the ban would be more symbolic than actually affect any elections since the exceptions that the SB 175 has for overseas military personnel are the only elections that have used RCV in Georgia.
“Lieutenant Governor made [banning RCV] a caucus position of the Senate Republicans to support, which effectively changes nothing about the law — it just says that ranked choice voting is officially banned,” Rowley said. “Interestingly enough, it doesn’t actually change anything legally because it makes a carve-out for the one scenario in which ranked choice voting is already allowed, which is overseas and military voters.”
On March 10, he and other advocates joined together at the state capitol for a “constituent day of action.” There, they presented a mock check for $75 million dollars, the estimated cost that a 2020 Kennesaw State University study found the Senatorial election runoff of that year cost taxpayers in the state — a runoff that would have been avoided through RCV.
The group spoke with members of the legislature on both sides of the aisle about the nuances of RCV and answered any of their questions. Rowley said that most of the people they spoke to didn’t have strong opinions but rather were simply curious.
“I think generally it was curiosity; even though ranked choice voting is something we’ve been working on for a while now, it is still relatively niche within the capitol itself in the sense that it is not something that they are taking really staunch positions on, at least not publicly,” Rowley said.
In 2021, Governor Brian Kemp signed SB 202 — a 98-page document that, among other things, made the provision to allow instant runoff voting for military and overseas voters. Rowley noted that when it passed there was little to no opposition, and since then it has been working fine.
“It is interesting that the people who are against ranked choice voting are like, ‘Oh, it’s so confusing that people couldn’t possibly understand it,’… and at the same time are making a carve-out for the exact use-case that it is already being used for in Georgia,” Rowley said.
Whether or not the ban takes place, Rowley and Better Ballot Georgia say they will continue to address what they see as the biggest hurdle: public awareness.
Often, Rowley said, the two arguments he hears against RCV are either blatant lies or ill-informed misinformation, some of which can be overcome through education.
So while RCV may be just a vote away from a ban, the Better Ballot Georgia is in the fight for the long haul.
“We’re affirmatively for ranked choice voting because we believe it to be the most elegant solution to the existing problems within the state, primarily the problem of runoff elections and all the drawbacks that come with that,” Rowley said. “There are over 14 million people who are currently using ranked choice voting in some form or another around the country… it’s definitely gaining momentum, and more and more elections are using it every election cycle.”
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