Ranked Choice Voting advocates face an uphill battle. Their proposed electoral reforms would shake up the current system � but incumbent legislators are the ones who would vote on them, and why would they vote to put their own positions in jeopardy? Going straight to the populace with a ballot measure is an option, but most casual voters in Massachusetts are going to have one question: What, exactly, is Ranked Choice Voting?

Howie Fain, a Worcester East Middle School science teacher, co-founded FairVote � which has gone by several different names over the years � in 1992. While the group is involved with a number of proposed electoral reforms ranging from proportional representation to a national popular vote, the big effort in the Bay State right now is Voter Choice Massachusetts, an organization that aims to institute Ranked Choice Voting in statewide and/or local elections.

A low-key organizational meeting at a Worcester college was the first step for the Central Massachusetts chapter of the group, which also holds Boston meetings and a Pioneer Valley chapter. Fain used Worcester City Council elections as an example to explain RCV.

In the current system for electing a single candidate � say, for example, Worcester�s mayor � everyone gets one vote, and whoever garners more votes than anyone else wins. Sounds simple enough, but anyone who has voted in such an election can see the pitfalls. Candidates with similar constituencies can split the vote, enabling a candidate to win with 30 percent of the electorate, even though they might be loathed by 70 percent of the city. Potential candidates might not even run, for fear of playing spoiler to a preferred fellow candidate. And voters who might align closely with a long-shot candidate might, instead, vote for their second or third choice in a pragmatic bid to stop another candidate � the so-called �lesser of two evils� option.

With RCV, and specifically the Single Transferable Vote option Fain talked about, no one wins with less than half the vote. Voters assign each candidate a ranking, from their first choice to their second choice, on down. If a candidate earns 50 percent of the votes, they win, just like in the current system. If no one reaches that threshold, the last place candidate is eliminated, and all the ballots that would have gone to them instead go to whoever the voter put down as their second choice candidate. This goes on until someone exceeds 50 percent � ensuring a candidate that, even if they might not have been everyone�s first choice, at least appeals to a majority of voters.

Cambridge has used RCV in local elections for 75 years, and advocacy groups got a huge momentum boost when Maine voters approved it for their statewide voting system in November last year. That vote is under a legal challenge over wording in Maine�s state constitution, although Fain said since Massachusetts does not have the same �plurality� wording in its constitution, any measure here would probably stick.

�The organization went from 0 to 60 real fast,� Fain said.

Further, he said, Worcester is actually a shining example of RCV, having employed the system from 1949 to 1959. It was instituted when the city adopted the current Plan E system of government. The Legislature then mandated a repeal vote on just the proportional voting aspect of Plan E, around the same time cities and states across the country were making moves to do away with RCV. Worcester was one of the last holdouts with the system.

�I think it�s fair to say it was repealed because it worked,� Fain said, referencing more diverse candidates and a threatened establishment in Worcester and nationally.

There are a handful of RCV bills in the state Legislature. One pair of bills would institute the �instant runoff� voting method for primary and general elections for all statewide offices, including state representatives and senators � one bill for primary elections and one for general elections. Another, which Fain said had a better chance of passing, would provide a local option for RCV in municipal elections, in a simpler process than a charter change or home rule petition. That bill has more than 30 sponsors in the legislature, including state Rep. Mary Keefe, 15th Worcester District, who also signed on to the other two, which have substantially less declared support and have been languishing in committee since 2015. The local option bill, proposed by Middlesex state Rep. Mike Connolly � whose district covers some of Cambridge � was first put forward in January of this year.

�There�s always talk of bringing it back from people who are aware of it,� Fain said.

Keefe said giving communities power of their own election processes is important, even if they decide to stick with the current method. But it was important to reassess electoral reform, she said, especially with renewed scrutiny of the national electoral college in light of a candidate who lost the national popular vote ascending to the presidency. People are starting to wonder if their vote counts, she said - and locally, while the stakes might not be as high, people have similar concerns about entrenched procedure taking precedence over peoples� votes.

�I think [RCV] does allow for people coming from other parties, and maybe people who aren�t as well known,� Keefe said. �... I think the conversation about how and why we vote is an important one.�

Although Voter Choice Massachusetts is a �nonpartisan, politically diverse� group, RCV advocates are often accused of having a liberal bent. Green Party presidential candidate and perceived �spoiler� Jill Stein advocated for the idea last cycle, and Fain said while they reach out to politicians of all stripes, they have not succeeded in attracting much Republican support.

One final kink in RCV, of course, is that at-large City Council and School Committee elections are not single-winner � there are multiple open spots, and voters are allowed multiple votes.

For multi-winner elections, much of the system works exactly the same way as RCV systems for single-winner, except officials could also eliminate the �shoo-in effect� by reallocating excess votes from winners who exceed the threshold to get elected. For example, if there were six open spots � on Worcester�s School Committee, perhaps � and 56,781 votes, as there were in the 1953 election, the six candidates would only need 8,112 votes to be elected, since it would be impossible for seven candidates to get that many. Today, this manifests in voting strategy in voters perhaps not voting for a popular, favored candidate because they instead want to help out another candidate they like who might not be a lock to be elected. RCV simplifies the problem � any �excess� votes above the required quota would be reallocated, usually proportionally, to voters� second place choices.�

The point, as with much of voting reform, is for voters to choose who they truly want to see in office, Fain said, and to allow elections free and clear of gamification or sub-optimal candidates. He said it also leads to more civil political discourse, something some might say is sorely needed in Worcester today.

�RCV has more civil campaigns,� Fain said. �You need support � you don�t just need your number ones. You need your number twos and threes. You�re appealing for transfer votes as well.�

The next meeting for the Central Massachusetts Voter Choice Massachusetts chapter is May 22. More information on the statewide push is available at voterchoicema.org.