# Could a state implement ranked choice voting for President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 10, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197 "2016-10-10T23:57:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/1 "2016-10-10T23:57:04Z")
I have been volunteering on the campaign for Maine’s question 5. This is to use ranked choice/ instant runoff voting for state legislators, governors, and congress. Many of the people I am working with on this have talked about wanting it for Presidential races as well, but there are currently no proposals for that. I am asking this as a hypothetical. Could a state do that without a constitutional amendment? The constitution leaves selection of the electors up to the state legislature. If a state legislature decided to use a popular vote conducted by ranked choice instead of FPTP, would the supreme court let it stand? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/2 "2016-10-11T00:07:45Z")
When was this last time Maine had a run-off election for President? Sounds like a solution in search of a problem. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/3 "2016-10-11T00:14:50Z")
If Florida had IRV in 2000, we never would have gone to war in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/4 "2016-10-11T02:02:14Z")
I don’t see why not. States are feel to allocate their electoral votes any way they see fit, and don’t have use popular elections at all. The only difference between using IRV in a presidential election instead of a gubernatorial election is that once all the preferences are counted the winner get’s all of the states electoral votes instead of becoming governor. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/5 "2016-10-11T02:15:31Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > When was this last time Maine had a run-off election for President? > > Sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Never. But this would lead to third parties becoming more viable, instead of serving as spoilers. Our last two governor’s races were big wake up calls for Mainers about this. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/6 "2016-10-11T04:12:43Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Never. But this would lead to third parties becoming more viable, instead of serving as spoilers. Our last two governor’s races were big wake up calls for Mainers about this. Howard Dean had a good editorial in the NYT on this very subject. I like the idea. The two bigs will never go for it though. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/7 "2016-10-11T05:48:12Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Our last two governor’s races were big wake up calls for Mainers about this. Why the last one? Michaud would have needed _80%_ of Cutler’s vote to beat LePage, and I don’t think the [exit polling](http://www.cbsnews.com/elections/2014/governor/maine/exit/) shows that to be a realistic expectation. About a quarter of Cutler’s voters were Republicans, a quarter were conservative, a third didn’t think LePage’s views were too extreme, half thought government does too much, more than half disapproved of Obama, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/8 "2016-10-11T13:49:08Z")
You might run into problems if a state tried to choose electors in a way completely divorced from the will of the people, like by rolling dice or something, because the US Constitution guarantees to the states a “republican form of government”. But that still leaves a lot of leeway, and you’d have a hard time arguing that ranked voting is “less republican” than the old way of having the legislature choose them. So, yeah, it’s just a matter of state law, and can be changed at the state level in whatever way the state changes such things. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-state-implement-ranked-choice-voting-for-president/768197/9 "2016-10-11T14:28:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You might run into problems if a state tried to choose electors in a way completely divorced from the will of the people, like by rolling dice or something, because the US Constitution guarantees to the states a “republican form of government”. But that still leaves a lot of leeway, and you’d have a hard time arguing that ranked voting is “less republican” than the old way of having the legislature choose them. So, yeah, it’s just a matter of state law, and can be changed at the state level in whatever way the state changes such things. A state can have a “republican form of government” without allocating its electoral votes in a “republican” way. How the state chooses its **federal presidential** electors is irrelevant to a determination of whether or not the state’s government is republican in nature.