A Big Idea: Strengthening Democracy Through Ranked Choice Voting

In the Fall 2023 issue of the Wellesley Magazine, faculty and researchers from around the College shared their big ideas for solving a problem related to their field, if time and money were not constraints. Wellesley mathematics professor and IMD Co-Founder Dr. Ismar Volić contributed his vision to the collaborative article, titled “A Big Idea: Inspiration for a Better World,” and his insights cast light on how we can strengthen democracy through ranked choice voting. 

Prof. Volić emphasizes that ranked choice voting can serve as the solution to the issues that occur under plurality and winner-takes-all voting systems. “Ranked choice’s strength lies in allowing voters to rank multiple candidates,” he writes. “If no candidate secures a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, and their votes are transferred to the next choice on each ballot. This process continues until a majority winner emerges, capturing voter preferences more comprehensively. The system curbs vote-splitting, prevents wasted votes, and eliminates the need for costly runoffs.”

Prof. Volić highlights the advocacy work of a new coalition aiming to bring ranked choice voting to the City of Boston’s upcoming elections and emphasizes that more than 90 municipalities in 27 states will be voting on RCV measures in 2023 or 2024, “an encouraging step toward fixing our mathematically flawed democracy.”

You can read more about the transformative power of RCV, alongside the big ideas of other Wellesley College professors, at the following link: https://magazine.wellesley.edu/fall-2023/big-idea.