“A bill to establish the use of ranked choice voting in elections for the offices of Senator and Representative in Congress, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section establishes the short title of the Act as the "Ranked Choice Voting Act" and includes a congressional finding that Article I, section 4, of the Constitution authorizes Congress to regulate the time, place, and manner of elections for Senators and Representatives in Congress.
This section requires each state to conduct elections for Senators and Representatives—including primaries, general elections on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even-numbered years (per current law), and special elections—using ranked choice voting (RCV), under which voters rank candidates by preference and votes are tabulated in rounds by eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes and transferring those votes to the next preference until one candidate receives a majority. The section specifies ballot requirements (allowing voters to rank at least five candidates or the total number of candidates, whichever is fewer; including all qualified candidates, write-ins where permitted, and instructions); prohibits separate runoff elections after primary, general, or special election dates; and permits nonpartisan blanket primaries only if at least three candidates advance, or a single RCV election on the federal general election date without a prior primary. It applies the requirements to the District of Columbia, territories, Delegates, and Resident Commissioners (including the Northern Mariana Islands) and details the RCV tabulation process (counting each ballot for the highest-ranked active candidate; eliminating the lowest-vote candidate per round; disregarding undervotes, inactive ballots where all ranked candidates are eliminated or exhausted due to ties/skips, and skipped or repeated rankings).
This section establishes a severability clause, providing that if any provision of the Act or its amendments, or its application to any person or circumstance, is held unconstitutional, the remainder of the Act and its application to other persons or circumstances remains unaffected.