Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed legislation on Wednesday prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting (RCV) in North Dakota elections, making it the 15th state to do so.
“Now more than ever, we need a consistent, efficient and easy-to-understand voter experience across our entire state to maintain trust in our election system,” Armstrong said in a statement. “This is one more in a series of proactive, common-sense steps our Secretary of State and Legislature have taken to support election integrity.”
HB 1297 stipulates that “[a]pproval voting or ranked-choice voting may not be used in an election held within [North Dakota] to elect or nominate a candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office.” Any existing “ordinance enacted or adopted” by North Dakota localities that “conflict” with this prohibition is now considered “void” under the new law.
Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
Meanwhile, approval voting is a system in which “voters may vote for any number of candidates they choose,” with the candidate “receiving the most votes” being the declared the winner, according to Ballotpedia. Until HB 1297’s enaction, the system was used in the city of Fargo.
As The Federalist previously reported, Democrats have often been RCV’s primary backers, with the system producing Democrat wins in races in which Republican candidates received the majority vote. The controversial system has furthermore generated inaccurate election results and high rates of discarded ballots in elections in which it’s been used.
North Dakota’s GOP-controlled legislature previously passed a bill attempting to prohibit RCV in elections in 2023. The measure was ultimately vetoed by then-Gov. and now-Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who claimed the legislation “undermines local control of local political subdivisions exercising their granted powers” under state law.
While the state House successfully overrode Burgum’s veto, the motion failed in the Senate, leading to the bill’s defeat.
With HB 1297’s passage into law, North Dakota joins Wyoming, West Virginia, and Kansas in barring RCV in elections this year. Other states poised to potentially follow suit include Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
