To Advocates of Ranked-Choice Voting: A Respectful Case for Caution in Maryland

By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews

Advocates of ranked-choice voting (RCV) deserve credit for engaging seriously with a real problem: many Americans feel disconnected from elections, dissatisfied with outcomes, and frustrated by negative campaigning and narrow pluralities. The impulse to improve how democracy functions is legitimate—and necessary.

This response is not written to dismiss those goals. It is written to question whether ranked-choice voting, as proposed for Maryland, is the right tool for the job.

Where We Agree

RCV is not a fringe idea. In certain contexts, it has demonstrated benefits:

• It can reduce the spoiler effect in crowded races
• It may encourage more civil campaigning, as seen in Maine and New York City
• It allows voters to express preferences beyond a single choice

These are meaningful improvements over simple plurality voting in genuinely competitive elections.

Acknowledging these points is important—not as a concession, but as a foundation for a more honest debate.

The Maryland Context Matters

Election reforms do not exist in a vacuum. Maryland is not a swing state, nor a multiparty system. It is a one-party dominant state, where:

• Democratic primaries often determine outcomes
• Nearly one-quarter of voters are independents excluded from those primaries
• General elections are frequently uncompetitive

Any reform should be evaluated against this reality.

RCV changes how votes are counted, but it does not change who gets to vote. In Maryland, the most consequential exclusion occurs before ballots are ever cast.

Ballot Exhaustion Is Not a Trivial Trade-Off

RCV advocates often respond to concerns about ballot exhaustion by noting that all voting systems produce “wasted votes.” That comparison understates the issue.

Under RCV, ballots can become inactive after being cast, reducing their influence on the final outcome. While exhaustion rates vary—and can be low in simple races—they rise in crowded primaries, precisely where RCV is most often proposed.

Research shows that exhaustion is not evenly distributed. Communities with lower voter education, language barriers, or fewer preferred candidates are more likely to see their ballots drop out early. Even if unintentional, this outcome raises equity concerns that should not be minimized.

Transparency and Trust Are Not Secondary Concerns

RCV advocates often emphasize mathematical elegance or theoretical improvements. Voters, however, experience elections through process, not theory.

Multi-round tabulation, delayed results, and outcomes that require explanation rather than observation can strain public confidence—especially at a time when trust in election systems is already fragile.

This does not mean voters are incapable of understanding RCV. It means trust is built through clarity, simplicity, and visibility. Complexity carries a cost, even when well-intentioned.

Rare Failures Still Matter

Advocates are correct that phenomena like non-monotonicity or center-squeeze are infrequent. But they are not imaginary.

Elections in Burlington, Vermont and Alaska demonstrate that RCV can, under certain conditions, eliminate broadly acceptable candidates or produce counterintuitive outcomes. The issue is not frequency alone—it is predictability and legitimacy.

A system that occasionally produces outcomes that defy common expectations must be evaluated carefully before expansion, not waved away as a statistical curiosity.

Local Success Does Not Guarantee Statewide Fit

Cities like Takoma Park and Greenbelt have adopted RCV, and those decisions reflect local preferences. That experimentation has value.

But local elections differ substantially from statewide primaries or presidential contests:

• Smaller electorates
• More targeted voter education
• Different turnout dynamics

Scaling a system from municipal use to statewide application is not a neutral step—it magnifies both benefits and risks.

A Reform That Addresses Maryland’s Core Problem

If the shared goal is broader participation and stronger democratic legitimacy, Maryland has a simpler, more direct option: open primaries.

Open primaries:

• Expand access to decisive elections
• Include independent voters without altering ballot mechanics
• Preserve transparent, auditable counting
• Avoid ballot exhaustion entirely

They carry trade-offs, as all reforms do. But they address the central question Maryland faces: who gets to participate in choosing leaders?

RCV does not.

A Call for a More Focused Debate

This is not an argument against innovation, nor a claim that RCV is inherently flawed everywhere. It is a call to align reforms with problems.

Maryland’s democratic challenge is not primarily vote-splitting. It is exclusion, low primary turnout, and declining trust. Before adding complexity to vote counting, lawmakers and advocates should confront those issues directly.

Reform should be judged not by national momentum or theoretical elegance, but by whether it expands participation, preserves transparency, and strengthens public confidence here.

On that standard, ranked-choice voting deserves careful scrutiny—not automatic adoption.

---

Editor’s Note (Optional)

MDBayNews welcomes responses from advocates, lawmakers, and researchers and will continue to publish evidence-based perspectives on election reform in Maryland.

---

Keep MDBayNews Reporting Free

MDBayNews exists to help Marylanders understand decisions made by state and local leaders — especially when those decisions affect daily life, rights, and public services.

If this article helped clarify what’s happening or why it matters, reader support makes it possible to keep publishing clear, independent reporting like this.

👉 Support Local Journalism

Have a tip or documents to share?

We review submissions carefully and confidentially. Anonymous tips are welcome when appropriate.

 👉 Submit a Tip