State voting rights acts recognize proportional ranked choice voting as a way to protect voters

Delaney Barker | 

As federal courts scale back the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Americans are seeking new ways to protect every citizen’s right to vote. One is the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, just reintroduced in the U.S. Senate today. 

Another is state voting rights acts, which are growing in popularity as a way to give voters more power to challenge harmful election laws and earn fair representation. These voting rights acts make many tools available, and proportional ranked choice voting (RCV) is an important one. 

Plurality block voting – in which voters have as many votes as there are seats up for election – is one of the most common forms of voting used to elect city and county legislatures in the United States. It is a “hyper-majoritian” system, effectively allowing the largest group of voters to choose all the winners and lock other groups out of representation. In districts where people of color are in the minority, a candidate could win without the support of a single voter of color – potentially violating state or federal voting rights laws.

Traditionally, one of the go-to remedies for this form of vote dilution has been single-member districts, but they only work in some cases. For example, in jurisdictions where voters of color live concentrated in specific neighborhoods, it may be possible to draw majority-minority districts that allow voters of color to elect candidates of their choice. But in jurisdictions where voters of color are more evenly spread out, it can be impossible to draw majority-minority districts; those jurisdictions need other tools, like proportional RCV, to provide fair representation. 

State voting rights acts recognize that picking the appropriate remedy for a jurisdiction is not one-size-fits-all. If communities are geographically dispersed and do not comprise the majority in any single-member district, they won’t be able to earn fair representation. Proportional RCV can ensure voters have the power to elect officials in line with their share of the vote, whether or not they make up a majority of voters. For instance, if Black voters make up 20% of a city’s population, they would be able to elect about 20% of city council members. 

Proportional RCV also makes it nearly impossible for politicians to gerrymander, because drawing voters into a district where they are in the minority no longer denies them representation. This empowers all voters and – at the federal level – would end America’s gerrymandering wars for good.  

The six states where voting rights acts allow for proportional RCV as a remedy to vote dilution are below, including the year each was adopted: 

  • California (2002): In Pico v. Santa Monica (2023), California’s Supreme Court clarified that “alternative” election methods like proportional RCV can be used as a benchmark to measure vote dilution under the state voting rights act. This makes it easier for voters of color to prove vote dilution and adopt a more representative election method.
  • Washington (2018): In Portugal v. Franklin County (2023), Washington State’s Supreme Court upheld the Washington Voting Rights Act, and noted that proportional RCV is a possible remedy to discrimination under the law.
  • New York (2022): New York’s John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act gives voters tools to fight discriminatory election rules, and explicitly includes RCV as a potential remedy.
  • Connecticut (2023): Connecticut’s John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act gives voters tools to fight discriminatory election rules, and allows an “alternative method of election” such as proportional RCV as a remedy.
  • Minnesota (2024): The Minnesota Voting Rights Act explicitly mentions proportional RCV as a remedy for election systems that dilute minority representation, such as gerrymandered districts or at-large block plurality elections. 
  • Colorado (2025): In May, Gov. Jared Polis signed the Colorado Voting Rights Act into law. The act protects voters against unfair election systems that result in voter dilution and allows courts to look at alternative election methods to determine whether voter dilution occurred. 

For more information on proportional RCV and state voting rights acts, see these resources from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the National Conference of State Legislatures.