Utah ranked choice voting pilot saves voters hundreds of thousands of dollars

The Utah ranked choice voting (RCV) pilot program has cut the cost of local elections by 40% and saved Utah taxpayers an estimated $800,000, according to a FairVote analysis. By consolidating two-round elections into one, RCV saves voters the cost and effort of participating in two separate elections. 

Utah first piloted ranked choice voting in two cities in 2019. In 2021, the legislature expanded the state’s RCV pilot program, making it easier for any municipality to use RCV for local elections. In the most recent local election cycle (2023), 12 cities opted in – including the capital and largest city, Salt Lake City. 

A large draw of the program is that participating cities can save money by eliminating a low-turnout preliminary election and identify a majority winner in a single election in November. FairVote sought to find out just how much they saved. 

FairVote requested municipal election expense reports from counties that encompass one or more cities that used RCV, and received expenses for 132 municipal elections in Utah and Salt Lake counties between 2017 and 2023. Most of the public RCV elections that have taken place in Utah are included in this dataset. 

The average cost for a municipal election for which a primary was held was $2.07 per voter. The average cost for an RCV election was $1.23 per voter. Therefore, we estimate that RCV saves the difference – $0.84 per voter, or 40%. 

If we multiply this by each voter in each RCV city each time RCV was used, we can estimate that RCV saved $791,856 in Utah. Cache, Grand, and Wasatch Counties did not provide data, and each includes one to three cities that have used RCV. So, it is likely that the total savings are even higher. Our data is publicly available at this link. 

It is safe to say Utah’s ranked choice voting pilot program has been a success. Not only does it save money, but recent survey data shows significant majorities of Utah voters are satisfied with RCV (94%) and find it easy to use (82%). 

Ranked choice voting is a better, faster, and cheaper way of running elections; Utah legislators must act to empower cities to continue using RCV beyond 2025.