New York City Votes for a Better Way to Vote

“Ranked choice” hurts polarizers and helps candidates who are acceptable to a broad range of voters

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A serious drawback of traditional winner-take-all voting is that a candidate who’s deeply disliked can win office as long as the opposition is divided. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won their parties’ presidential nominations in 2016, even though they had the highest unfavorability ratings of any major-party candidates in decades.

There is a better way to vote called ranked-choice voting, and on Nov. 5, voters in New York City chose it for citywide primaries and special elections starting in 2021. The charter amendment had nearly 74% of the votes with 90% of the votes counted, according to the New York Times.