Dear John,

Yesterday, the Republican Party in the Virgin Islands became the first Republican state or territorial party to use ranked choice voting (RCV) in its presidential primary!

The third-in-the-nation primary placed national attention on RCV – like this CBS News story featuring FairVote, the Virgin Islands Republican Party executive director, and Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State all speaking positively about the reform. 

Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley, 74%-26%, in the ranked choice voting count. See an interactive display of the unofficial results here, and full analysis here.

RCV improved the Virgin Islands presidential primary by preventing “zombie votes” – votes for candidates who had already dropped out. 11% of Virgin Islands voters picked a withdrawn candidate – like Ron DeSantis or Chris Christie – as their first choice. Thanks to RCV, 74% of those voters still had their vote count for an active candidate. 

Compare that to New Hampshire’s primary last month, where over 5,500 Republicans saw their votes “wasted” on dropped-out candidates whose names were still on the ballot.

Additionally, if more states and territories used RCV, more candidates would’ve been able to stay in this year’s presidential race – allowing voters to decide among the full field, instead of party elites pushing candidates out lest they “play spoiler” or “split the vote.” With ranked choice voting, voters can identify a consensus, majority nominee in a multi-candidate field.

The Virgin Islands GOP primary is just the latest use of RCV for nominations. Republicans in Virginia, Utah, and Indiana have all used RCV in recent years to nominate winning candidates in key races. Democrats in five states used RCV in their 2020 presidential primaries; voters engaged at high rates, and no votes were wasted.

As RCV grows in popularity, we expect even more places to follow the Virgin Islands’ lead by using it. To help make that happen, join an RCV group in your state today!

Onwards,
Deb Otis
FairVote Research and Policy Director

PS. Yesterday was a big news day for RCV, even outside the Virgin Islands. Check out this story on RCV’s momentum in the states from the New York Times!