More states banned ranked-choice voting in 2024 than any other year

Five states–Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma–passed laws banning the use of RCV in 2024, more than in any other year.

No state had a law prohibiting the use of RCV before 2022 when Florida and Tennessee became the first states to adopt bans. Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota joined them in 2023. Republicans controlled the legislature in all ten states to have passed an RCV ban.

A sixth state, Missouri, passed a legislatively referred constitutional amendment creating a ballot measure at November’s election asking voters to decide whether to ban RCV. In addition to Missouri, voters in at least three other states will decide on ballot measures related to RCV this November. In Alaska, voters will consider repealing RCV for statewide and legislative elections, while in Nevada and Oregon, voters will decide whether to adopt RCV for certain elections.

Only one state enacted a law authorizing the new use of RCV this year. Maine adopted LD 1578, which makes Maine a member of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and requires the use of RCV for presidential elections if the compact ever takes effect.

In Colorado, Governor Jared Polis (D) signed SB 210, an omnibus elections bill that changes several areas of election law, including adding provisions to state law that would make it more difficult to adopt RCV in statewide elections. The section of the bill related to RCV was added to the bill near the end of the state’s legislative session, and Polis said he did not approve of those portions but would sign the bill because it contained provisions to strengthen trust and security in elections.

Colorado may vote on a constitutional amendment to adopt RCV for some statewide elections in November. SB 210 would likely delay implementation of the electoral system if that ballot measure were to pass. In that case, Polis said he would “map out a process for implementing this initiative as soon as practicable with my commitment to full implementation by the 2028 election cycle.” Read more about SB 210 and the Colorado ballot measure here.

In total, 45 bills introduced in 20 states this year would ban or repeal RCV, nearly double the number from 2023 and 2022 combined. In all three years, bans and repeals were adopted at a higher rate than new authorizations. In other words, there have been more RCV bans adopted in the last three years than new authorizations, despite half as many introduced bills.

This article’s information is based on Ballotpedia’s State of Election Administration Legislation 2024 Mid-Year Report. The report provides insights, analysis, and takeaways from the 3,735 election-related bills we tracked in the first half of this year.