Why RCV would benefit Kansas

RCV leads to more civil campaigns and communities and builds consensus.

Candidates in RCV elections must appeal to a majority of voters by focusing on issues that bring people together. Candidates recognize that, while some voters already have a different first choice, they can aim to be those voters' second choice. To be a voter's second choice, candidates must refrain from campaigning negatively against the voter's first choice.

In districts that use RCV, candidates often work with other candidates to build broad coalitions. These coalitions encourage solid, effective policymaking based on reasonable compromise instead of policies promoting extreme views for the sake of appealing to voters in primary elections.

RCV allows voters to better communicate their preferences.

In many races, there are several candidates in the field who are similar and a couple who are quite different from the rest. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to better express which type of candidate they would like to win. A voter can rank all of the candidates they like in order of preference at the top of their ballot and either rank the candidates they dislike at the bottom of their list or not rank them at all. 

RCV saves money and time on run-offs and primaries and reduces money in politics.

Since our current first-past-the-post system (i.e., plurality voting) works best with only two candidates, most elections in our country are held in two parts: 1) a primary that narrows the field to two candidates chosen by voters registered with a party, and 2) a general election by all registered voters. Ranked-choice voting allows a clear victor to be determined regardless of the number of candidates in the race, making some primaries, like the nonpartisan primaries in local elections, unnecessary.

Doing away with local primaries or runoff elections not only reduces the amount government needs to spend on elections but also the amount of money local candidates need to spend in their races. This can go a long way toward reducing the amount of money in local politics and the real or perceived conflicts of interest created by campaign contributions to local politicians.