Ranked-choice voting in Wisconsin primaries could boost candidates with broader appeal, experts say

Primary elections are administered by the state, and changing how we vote there would require a new law. Many cities and a couple states already use it, but opposition to a change is significant.

By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT

Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor has officially gone off script, leading to a crowded field and the fear that a weaker general election candidate will emerge with just a plurality rather than a majority of the vote. Could the use of ranked-choice voting in the parties’ nomination process do a better job elevating candidates with more widespread support?

The establishment’s apparent choice, Lt. Gov. Sarah Rodriguez, ended her run for the state’s chief executive July 17 after news broke that accounting discrepancies meant she had much less cash on hand than previously thought. David Crowley, the current Milwaukee County executive who had quit the race and endorsed Rodriguez, then reentered with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers.

Democratic primary voters may have as many as five choices for governor on Aug. 11: Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong of Madison, state Sen. Kelda Roys of Madison, former Lt. Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, and Joel Brennan, the former head of the state Department of Administration.

A recent poll from the Marquette Law School has Barnes beating the likely Republican nominee, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, by five points. But Hong, a Democratic socialist, who led Barnes and the rest of the field among primary voters, was only tied with Tiffany among general election voters.

That has Democratic Party leadership in a panic, as Hong has taken positions that are unpopular statewide, like defunding and abolishing the police. Sensing an opportunity, Republican groups are trying to boost Hong in the primary with a TV ad campaign, and some on the political right are openly calling for Republicans to vote for her, thinking a face-off against Hong offers the GOP their best chance to win back the governor’s seat.

So then, a question arises: is it in a political party’s interest to decide their primaries by ranked-choice voting? Proponents say the system could deliver a candidate more popular in a general election. Let’s examine.

There’s more than one way to run a primary

In Wisconsin, you don’t have to be a registered Democrat or Republican to vote in their primary elections, but you can only vote in one or the other. As in most states, the winner in a Wisconsin election is the candidate who gets the most votes, even if their total is less than a majority.

But in some states, a second vote, or runoff election held later, may be required if a candidate doesn’t win a majority the first time around.

In Oklahoma, for example, if no candidate wins a majority of the vote in the primary, a runoff between the top two candidates determines who moves onto the general election.

But what if voters didn’t have to choose just one candidate on their ballot?

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank as many candidates as they would like. In the U.S., 51 jurisdictions, including two states, use this system for hundreds of elections, according to the American Bar Association.

In ranked-choice voting, voters rank, in order of preference, as many candidates as they choose. After the first count, if none of the candidates receive a majority of the vote, then the candidate with the least amount of votes is wiped off the board, and that candidate’s first-choice votes are awarded to the voters’ second-choice candidates. This process continues in an instant runoff until one candidate has a majority.

Under this scheme, a voter can support their preferred candidate without siphoning votes away from the candidates favored to win the most votes, proponents argue. This also avoids a major problem with runoff elections that require voters to cast a ballot for a second time in a short period of time: lower election turnout, according to FairVote, a nonpartisan organization that studies elections.

Arguments for and against

Supporters argue that the system advances candidates who better represent the preferences of a wider range of voters, said Derek Clinger, senior counsel for the State Democracy Research Initiative, a research group based out of UW-Madison’s law school.

For instance, if three moderates and one far-left candidate ran in a Democratic primary, it’s possible the more ideologically extreme candidate would advance, even if more people preferred a more moderate choice. The moderate vote could be divided three ways.

“The research, so far, suggests that elections with ranked-choice voting encourage greater consensus building and more civil campaigns, as candidates are incentivized to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate,” Clinger wrote in an email to The Badger Project.

In Alaskan primaries, all candidates appear on the same nonpartisan ballot. The top four vote-getting candidates, regardless of party, advance to the general election, which then uses a ranked-choice voting system to determine the winner. Studies have suggested this system produces more moderate winners, Clinger said.

In Alaska, the top-four voting system has led to a governing majority consisting of a coalition of Republicans and Democrats. Clinger said some conservatives opposed ranked-choice voting after the 2022 congressional election in Alaska that resulted in a Democrat winning a congressional seat rather than former Republican governor Sarah Palin. But Democrats have opposed it, too, he said, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who vetoed a bill that would have expanded the system at the local level.

“Republican and Democratic opponents have all made similar arguments,” Clinger wrote. “They think the system is too confusing for voters and likely to cause errors resulting in votes not counting at all.”

Some scholars also believe ranked-choice voting can have the opposite of a moderating effect.

Nathan Atkinson, a professor at UW-Madison’s law school, wrote in a research paper that even as Alaska’s 2022 elections boosted moderates, emulating the model across the country might not have the same effect.

Atkinson argues that when ranked-choice voting uses an instant runoff process, the moderate pick favored by the majority may actually have a worse chance of winning, especially when the electorate is “unusually polarized.”

Even so, changing how political parties, which are private entities, select their candidates in Wisconsin would require a change to state law, Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at UW-La Crosse, wrote in an email.

Implementing ranked-choice voting could lead to reciprocal endorsements between candidates and fewer political attacks, he noted.

But “a strong front-runner who expects to win without many transferred votes may have little reason to change (his or her campaign) strategy,” Chergosky said. “(Ranked-choice voting) may also initially attract more candidates because candidates do not have to worry as much about acting as ‘spoilers’ or splitting the vote with a similar candidate.”

He doesn’t expect the current state legislature to move on ranked-choice voting. But a Democratic majority, aided by a Democratic governor, could push the effort forward.

In 2025, minority Democrats in the state Capitol introduced a bill that would have allowed localities to institute ranked-choice voting for local elections. In spring 2026, Democrats expanded the attempt, pushing a bill forward that would require ranked-choice voting for all local, state and federal elections in Wisconsin. Both bills ultimately died. A bipartisan bill that would have installed a voting system similar to Alaska’s also died in 2024.

Brandon Scholz, an independent political analyst, told The Badger Project that ranked-choice voting places an unreasonable expectation on voters.

In theory, Scholz said, ranked-choice voting sounds like a great option. But in reality, voters can only take advantage of the system if they take the time to research and compare each candidate to determine who they prefer.

It’s “never going to happen,” Scholz said. “You’re asking voters to do something that’s incredibly complicated.”

Proponents of the system disagree, noting that in ranked-choice voting, a voter can still choose only one candidate on a ballot, just as they do in the current system. They don’t have to rank every or even any other candidate.

New York City recently started using ranked-choice voting for its mayoral elections, and in 2025 had its highest turnout for a city election in nearly 70 years.

The Badger Project is an independent news nonprofit in Wisconsin.