Multi-racial representation

The above analysis relies only on the reduced threshold for election in larger, multi-winner districts, meaning that it would likely hold even if using a semi-proportional method like limited or cumulative voting. However, many of the most important benefits come from the ranked ballot and the round-by-round count.

The impact of ranked choice voting

In the 1990s, voting rights advocates pushed for replacing winner-take-all districts with semi-proportional voting, often citing many of the benefits above. The voting method most often called for was cumulative voting. In her 1993 Texas Law Review article, legal scholar Lani Guinier, the leading voice for proportional voting during this era, describes her principle of political fairness as “one-vote, one-value,” saying: 

The only system with the potential to realize this principle for all voters is one in which the unit of representation is political rather than regional, and the aggregating rule is proportionality rather than winner-take-all. Semi-proportional systems, such as cumulative voting, can approximate the one-vote, one-value principle by minimizing the problem of wasted votes [emphasis added].[6]

However, the limits of semi-proportional representation have become apparent in the years since. Systems like cumulative voting allow communities outside the majority to elect candidates of choice only if they organize around the exact number of candidates they can elect. In other words, the election cannot include in-group competition. This has resulted, for example, in Democrats in Port Chester, New York, refusing to run more than one Latino candidate on their slate under cumulative voting, even as the town’s Latino population has grown.[7] In places where such candidates could not be suppressed, they sometimes split the community vote, resulting in the election of no candidates of color at all, as in the Amarillo (Texas) Board of Regents cumulative voting election in 2017, in which two Latino candidates ran and lost, despite collectively earning enough votes to win a seat.[8]

Fortunately, proportional ranked choice voting can achieve the benefits of these methods without their drawbacks.[9] In proportional ranked choice voting elections, the use of rankings by voters can have a substantial impact on representation, creating new tools that communities of color can use to build power.

As an example, consider the track record of single-winner ranked choice voting, also called instant runoff voting. This system is not proportional but operates just like proportional ranked choice voting as applied to the election of a single winner by majority vote. As such, it offers an experiment where we can control for the impact of the rankings and round-by-round counts independent from the impact of proportionality.

Cities that have adopted ranked choice voting have seen increases in election rates of candidates of color. In 2021, New York City used ranked choice voting in its municipal primary elections for the first time. The result: an increase in Black, Latino, and AAPI representation on the council and the largest proportion of women elected in the city’s history.[10] This reinforced a trend: Candidates of color and women of all races win at higher rates in cities with ranked choice voting than in those without it.

A 2021 report from FairVote assessed results and ballot data from nearly 400 such ranked choice voting elections and identified some reasons why candidates of color do better under the system:

• Candidates of color gain more votes between rounds than white candidates.
• Voters of color use more rankings than white voters. 
• Candidates of color are not penalized by competition from other candidates of color.[11]
  We should take care when applying lessons from single-winner ranked choice voting, especially in local and nonpartisan races, to proportional ranked choice voting for the U.S. House. The two are very different systems. But these dynamics do show how the ranked ballot and round-by-round count can improve representation compared to a vote-for-one system.

  Although harder to quantify, these benefits may go beyond effective ballot use and election rates to real responsiveness for otherwise underserved communities. Even if a group of voters has too few votes to elect a candidate of choice, the ranked ballot incentivizes candidates to care about what the group wants. Such a group can still have a candidate of choice, even if that candidate is unlikely to win, and other candidates will compete for the group’s second-choice support.

  Consider, for example, Cincinnati’s use of proportional ranked choice voting in the 1920s. It elected nine seats with proportional ranked choice voting. At the time, the Black community’s voter share was just below the 10 percent election threshold. In 1927 and 1929, prominent Black community member Frank A.B. Hall ran as an Independent and instructed his supporters to withhold backup choices and vote only for him to protest the absence of Black candidates on the major parties’ slates. Hall did not win, but he demonstrated the power of the Black vote, placing 11th in a race for nine seats. The Republican Party, eager to attract more rankings, added Hall to its slate in 1931, and Hall became the city’s first Black councilmember. 

  From then on, Cincinnati Republicans consistently included a Black candidate in their slate.[12] Black representation on the council grew over the years as Cincinnati diversified — until it repealed proportional ranked choice voting in 1957 amid growing racial tensions as the modern civil rights movement gained steam, at which point no Black councilmembers won election for years. In fact, the repeal of proportional representation was cited as a contributor to racial unrest by the Kerner Commission, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Presidential commission that investigated the underlying causes of the 1967 race riots in Cincinnati and other cities, demonstrating how downstream effects of election methods can make the difference between peaceful resolution of polarizing issues and violence.[13]

  Toward a genuine multiracial democracy

  The 2020 census showed a large increase in the number of people of color across the United States, and — for the first time — a decrease in the white population. It showed that white people are no longer the majority in seven states and are no longer even the plurality in four. In short, it showed that our country’s multi-racial future is here.

  Such demographic changes amid our racially polarized politics will surely escalate polarization. The polarization that culminated in the Civil War stemmed from a perceived threat to white supremacy and lasted into the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. It only abated once the perceived threat to white supremacy diminished due to the premature end of Reconstruction and the often-violent suppression of Black political power in the South. 

  If today’s increasing diversity escalates political polarization, then it could lead to another national disaster: another Civil War or a regime that again suppresses the power of groups of color, like in the 1870s. Or, it could lead to something new: a more peaceful and productive mediation of the country’s deep racial divisions. This option is plainly the best one.

  In addition to increasing the voting power and the numerical representation of communities of color, proportional ranked choice voting can help white representatives recognize the value of those voices, even in conditions of severe racial polarization. Consider Chilton County, Alabama, which in 1988 adopted cumulative voting to remedy a Voting Rights Act challenge. The new system resulted in the election of the county’s first Black commissioner, Bobby Agee. His presence initially drew resentment, but over time he established enough credibility and expertise that the commission elected him chair for two consecutive terms. As occupant of the most powerful position in the county, Agee was able to improve all manner of policymaking for Chilton County’s Black community and to improve the county as a whole.[14]

  Changing how we elect the U.S. House will not bridge our deep racial divisions on its own, but it will make mediation more possible. Proportional ranked choice voting will offer a clearer reflection of the nation’s diversity, and more representatives will have direct electoral incentives pushing them to look and listen. The benefits go beyond the proverbial voices being heard. After all, the U.S. House is a place of power. There, traditionally excluded voices will not only have more say in the national conversation but will also be better able to shape law and policy.

  In this way, proportional ranked choice voting in the U.S. House can open the door to a genuine, functional multi-racial democracy in the United States.