Make the most out of public financing with ranked choice voting
Public financing programs for elections can mitigate the obstacles facing new or less-wealthy candidates, but it fails to address – and may even exacerbate – the problems of “vote-splitting” and “spoiler” candidates. If more candidates enter a race, the larger pools can lead to split fields and winners without broad support. Of course, some candidates may still choose to stay out of a race despite the new funding – out of fear that they’ll split the vote with ideologically or demographically similar candidates.
Ranked choice voting (RCV) helps voters navigate crowded fields and elect a majority winner, making it the perfect complement to public financing or democracy voucher programs. Seattle, Oakland, and New York City are already leading the way in this pairing.
Many U.S. cities and states use some form of public financing for campaigns (also sometimes known as “public funding”). Typically, these programs offer matching funds to campaigns that meet certain criteria. One unique example of public financing is Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers program; the city provides eligible residents with $50 in vouchers to contribute to candidates of their choice.
Public financing can lead to large fields of candidates that can be difficult for voters to manage in choose-one elections. For example, the average number of city council candidates in Seattle rose from 3.9 (in the four election years prior to adopting Democracy Vouchers) to 8.6 (in the four election years since adoption).
Similarly, New York City expanded its public matching program in 2021, at the same time it implemented RCV. The 2021 election saw the highest number of candidates in the city’s history, with first-time candidates getting the biggest boost from public financing.
With that larger candidate field, RCV ensured the candidates with the broadest support won, and that candidates who appealed to the same voter base didn’t split the vote. The election resulted in the city’s first majority-female city council, which was also majority-people of color and had the youngest member in the council’s history at just 23 years old.
Across the nation, Seattle voted to adopt RCV in 2022 and will implement it by 2027 – pairing RCV and its Democracy Vouchers program. Meanwhile, Oakland, CA has enacted reform in the opposite order – it has long used RCV and voted to adopt its own “Democracy Dollars” program on the 2022 ballot.
Once RCV is paired with public financing in both Seattle and Oakland, we’ll see two more examples of how these reforms can complement one another.
This is the eighth post in FairVote’s ongoing #PutRCVOnIt series, where we examine how RCV works in conjunction with, and improves, other election reforms. We acknowledge that there are many ideas for improving American democracy, but also that no reform is a silver bullet. We explain why RCV is a key piece of the puzzle, and how it fits in with other pieces.
