Sincere, Strategic, or Something Else? The Impact of Ranked-Choice Voting on Voter Decision Making Processes

• Published date: 01 July 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X241236196
• Author: Alan Simmons,Nicholas W. Waterbury
• Date: 01 July 2024

Article

American Politics Research

2024, Vol. 52(4) 367–380

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X241236196

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Sincere, Strategic, or Something Else? The

Impact of Ranked-Choice Voting on Voter

Decision Making Processes

Alan Simmons

1

and Nicholas W. Waterbury

1



Abstract

The academic debate on how voters decide which candidates to support often centers on whethe r they prioritize their personal

preferences or consider who can beat the opposing candidate. American research on voting behavior has largely focused on

f‌irst-past-the-post (FPTP) elections. However, considering jurisdictions are adopting new electoral systems such as ranked-

choice voting (RCV) this leads to several questions about the impact of system adoption on voter decision-making. Particularly,

does the voter decision-making process differ depending on the system used? To investigate the impact of RCV on voter

decision-making across electoral systems we conducted a survey experiment in a federal senate election.Our f‌indings indicate

that in comparison to FPTP elections, RCV elections may lead to decreases in both sincere and strategic voting. Instead, RCV

appears to increase voter uncertainty around how to decide which candidates to support and leads to voters who appear to be

neither sincere nor strategic.

Keywords

ranked-choice voting, survey experiment, sincere voting, strategic voting

Introduction

Understanding how voters decide which candidate to support

is a crucial aspect of any democracy, and researchers have

extensively studied American voter behavior in this regard.

The factors that inf‌luence voter decisions are numerous,

including policy preferences, appearances, feelings, religious

beliefs, economic conditions, biases, and perceptions of a

candidate’s chances of winning. These factors, taken together,

form the basis of attempts to comprehend voter behavior.

However, deciding which candidate to support is even more

complicated as voters must also decide whether to vote

sincerely for their preferred candidate or to strategically vote

for a candidate who they believe has a better chance of

winning, even when they may not prefer them.

This strategic versus sincere voting debate in America has

been extensively studied in the context of the f‌irst-past-the-

post (FPTP) electoral system. Given several American states

and localities have recently introduced new electoral systems,

such as ranked-choice voting (RCV) and approval voting, to

decide the winner of elections our understanding of this

debate needs to grow to include these alternative systems. For

instance, Maine employsRCV in federal elections,while

Alaska uses a combination of a top-four “jungle”primary and

an RCV general election for all state and federal elections.

Additionally, some states use RCV for primary elections, and

several major cities, such as Oakland, San Francisco, Min-

neapolis, St Paul, and New York City, have adopted RCV for

their local government elections.

These innovative electoral systems raise questions about

the potential impact they may have on voter decision-making.

As voters balance various factors, including their personal

preferences and expectations of who will win, the intro-

duction of new electoral systems may inf‌luence how voters

approach the decision-making process. Therefore, it is im-

portant to continue studying the impact of electoral inno-

vations on voter behavior through to these electoral

innovations.

As part of understanding electoral innovations, a growing

body of research examines the impact of ranked-choice

voting (RCV) on electoral outcomes. Studies suggest that

RCV improves candidatediversity, enhances the toneof

1

University of Illinois Springf‌ield, Springf‌ield, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Alan Simmons, The Center for State Policy and Leadership, University of

Illinois at Springf‌ield, One University Plaza, MS PAC 451, Springf‌ield, IL

62703-5407, USA.

Email: Asimm2@uis.edu