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State of Election Administration Legislation 2025 Mid-Year Report: Topics of note, Ranked-choice voting (RCV)
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August 26, 2025
By Ballotpedia staff
Ranked-choice voting (RCV)
Six states banned ranked-choice voting in 2025, while no state expanded the use of RCV through state legislation. This matched 2024 for the most ever in a single year. Seventeen states now ban RCV. However, a majority of 2025 bills related to RCV propose to allow or require a new use of the electoral system (63 of 101 bills and resolutions). None of those bills have become law.
Five of the six states to ban RCV this year have a Republican trifecta:
- Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) signed HB 165 on March 18.
- West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R) signed SB 490 on March 19
- North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong (R) signed HB 1297 on April 15.
- Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed HB 1706 which became law on April 17.
- Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed HF 1954 into law on June 2.
In the sixth state to ban RCV, Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) became the first Democratic governor to sign an RCV prohibition into law when she signed SB 6 on April 1.
RCV was not used for any elections in any of these states before the bans became law.
In 2024, six states, including five Republican trifectas — Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma — passed laws banning the use of RCV, more than in any other year.
The closest lawmakers came to adopting an expansion of RCV was in Maine, where lawmakers agreed to recall LD 1666 from Gov. Janet Mills (D) desk after the Legislature approved it. The bill would have expanded the state’s use of RCV to include general and special elections for governor, state senator, and state representative. Currently, Maine is one of two states—alongside Alaska— that use RCV for at least some statewide elections. Maine uses RCV for congressional and all other statewide elections besides governor and Legislature. State law also authorizes municipalities to adopt the electoral system for local elections.
In 2018, Maine became the first state to adopt RCV for at least some statewide elections after voters approved the Maine Ranked Choice Voting Initiative. The initiative originally included gubernatorial and state legislative races among those that would transition to RCV. In May 2017, the Justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued a unanimous advisory opinion that said using RCV in general elections for those offices was unconstitutional under the Maine Constitution.
According to the Portland Press Herald, LD 1666 would have, “clarif[ied] the definition of ranked choice voting by changing several references to ‘votes’ to ‘ballots’ and add[ed] that the final round ‘of tabulation is determined to have received a plurality of the votes cast,’” thereby circumventing the constitutional language that prevented RCV implementation for gubernatorial and legislative offices. Read more about that bill here.
No state has adopted or expanded the use of RCV through legislation since 2023, although voters in two states and D.C. did adopt RCV for some local elections.
Read more about ballot measures related to RCV at the 2024 general election here.
Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
State election laws are changing. Keeping track of the latest developments in all 50 states can seem like an impossible job.
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About the authors
About the authors
Joe Greaney is a staff writer on Ballotpedia's Law Team.
Ballotpedia Managing Editor Janie Valentine reviewed the report and provided feedback, as did Senior Editor Norm Leahy Associate Director of Features Cory Eucalitto.
See also
- Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
- About Ballotpedia's Election Administration Legislation Tracker
- Voting laws in the United States
- Election Policy
