Today marks the first meeting of Connecticut’s task force studying ranked choice voting (RCV). Governor Ned Lamont established the Governor’s Working Group on Ranked Choice Voting on June 6 to study RCV in municipal elections and party primaries. He tasked the cross-partisan group with presenting its findings by the end of the year, in time to inform Connecticut’s 2025 legislative session.

Ranked choice voting is an increasingly popular procedure among various political parties that enables voters to have all their preferences fully considered when choosing candidates for elected office. It has been used with success in other states throughout the U.S. for many years, and there is a growing consensus in Connecticut that enacting this system here will benefit our voters.

– Governor Ned Lamont

This is just the latest evidence of strong support for RCV in Connecticut. In the 2023 legislative session, Senate Bill 389 – which would allow municipalities to use RCV in local elections, and allow political parties to use it in presidential primaries – accrued 20 co-sponsors from both parties. In the State House, Rep. Josh Elliott has introduced RCV legislation each session since his election in 2016. 

Senators Cathy Osten (D) and Tony Hwang (R) co-chair the Governor’s task force. Other notable members include Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas (D); Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz (D); the Republican registrar of voters for Wilton, CT; and the director of the Center for Voting Technology Research at the University of Connecticut. 

Another notable member is Vice Chair Monte Frank, who lost a 2018 bid for Lieutenant Governor as an independent. Frank says RCV would have allowed voters to support less mainstream candidates. 

“If I had a dime for every voter who said to us, ‘we really wanted to vote for you but we were concerned about the other guy getting elected, I’d be a pretty rich guy right now,” Frank joked in an NBC interview.

FairVote’s Deb Otis presented research on RCV at today’s kickoff meeting, highlighting how RCV has reduced “strategic voting” in many Utah cities:

[In] a recent exit poll in Utah, voters said they were more likely to vote honestly by a 30 to one margin.

Deb also noted the importance of majority rule in elections, saying that “if more than half of the voters want you in office, that should be the lowest bar… ranked choice voting gets us there, but our current elections do not.”

The task force will meet monthly over the next several months, and will aim to produce a recommendation for the next legislative session by November. 

This task force is one of many examples of RCV’s breakneck growth in New England. New England has been a pioneer in election reform, with implementations of RCV in Maine and several influential cities. If Connecticut adopts RCV legislation, it will join the 50 cities, counties, and states that have embraced RCV across the nation.

To support ranked choice voting in the Nutmeg State, visit Connecticut Voters First today!