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? 🤔

  • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
    3•1 day ago

    There are other issues, too, like North Dakota getting 2 Senators representing 783,926 people while California gets 2 Senators representing 38,940,231 people, or a ratio of almost 50 to 1.

    • @Bravo@eviltoast.org
      1•7 hours ago

      The EU has a similar system:

      • Each EU member state gets ONE seat at the EU Council, regardless of population. This is comparable to the US Senate.
      • Differences in population size are accounted for by EU Parliament, where the number of MEPs (Members of European Parliament) a member state gets is determined by population. This is comparable to the US House of Representatives.
      • Finally there is the EU Commission which is the executive branch, comparable to the US president and cabinet.

      The point of the EU Council/US Senate is to protect isolated regions from getting steamrolled by urban regions. Farmers are comparatively few relative to city industry workers, but any nation, union or federation is built on the back of farming. However, due to the distance and lack of interaction between city dwellers and rural dwellers, it’s easy for city dwellers to grow disconnected from the reality of just how important the rural dimension is, and vote for laws that only suit the city. It is utterly necessary to create a system which balances the two. Otherwise you’d have, like, three states (New York, California, Texas) making all the decisions, with the other 47 states having to like it or lump it.

      • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        1•7 hours ago

        See, I disagree with the last sentiment, because the states with the majority of people SHOULD make the decisions. That’s pretty much the definition of Democracy. A state with 1/500th of the people which drill oil and mine coal should not get to decide, for example, environmental policy and power infrastructure at the same level as the states with all of the people. The small state which are heavily indoctrinated to a specific religious doctrine should not dictate how we approach bodily autonomy. A small state which only gets news from radio and cable TV owned by a monopoly should not decide our foreign affairs.

        They should fucking Lump it, and appreciate their autonomy on local economy. And I say that as somebody raised Rural and Religious.

        • @Bravo@eviltoast.org
          2•6 hours ago

          That’s a rug pull, though. Both the American and EU states only agreed to join their respective unions in the first place on the promise that these systems of balances would give them this level of input on union policy. Without such assurances, what small nation would ever agree to become inevitably subordinate to the whims of a larger state? It would never happen, and the western world would remain fractured into small nation-states constantly warring with each other, failing to cooperate and probably getting picked off, one by one, by nations like China or Russia which have no such qualms about forcing a union through conquest.

          No, these unions were negotiated in good faith and if we’re unhappy with them now, then the answer should be secession. Brexit proved that nobody is forced to remain in the EU if they don’t like the deal.

          • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
            1•4 hours ago

            I assure you there are more than enough reasons for cooperation and collectivism without being disproportionately represented.

            A history book eould tell you war is omnipresent throughout all of human society and so is greed. The larger collectives prevent both.

    • morgan423English
      3•1 day ago

      Plenty of issues overall, sure, but I’m speaking specifically about the statistical inability to vote for third parties and have it mean anything.