The New York City mayoral primary is this week and will be the first one to use ranked-choice voting. This week, we revisit an episode that aired not longer after the city's voters approved ranked-choice voting via ballot measure  in November 2019. 

What is ranked-choice voting? How does it work? And, is it more democratic than the single-vote method we’re used to? This week’s guest has answers to all of those questions.

Burt L. Monroe is Liberal Arts Professor Political Science, Social Data Analytics, and Informatics at Penn State and Director of the university’s Center for Social Data Analytics. He says ranked-choice voting is generally a good thing for democracy, but not entirely without problems of its own. We also talk about bullet voting, donkey voting, and other types of voting that have been tried around the world.

As Michael and Chris discuss, ranked-choice voting falls into a category of grassroots organizing around pro-democracy initiatives like gerrymandering and open primaries. These efforts signal a frustration with the status quo and a desire to make the rules of democracy more fair and equitable.

Additional Information

Fairvote, an advocacy group for ranked-choice voting and election reform

Burt’s Google Scholar listing

Related Episodes

How to end democracy's doom loop

The case for open primaries

One state’s fight for fair maps