Sen. Bernie Sanders stands as the cur­rent fron­trun­ner of announced can­di­dates for the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion. Giv­en his small donor fundrais­ing capac­i­ty, abil­i­ty to draw mas­sive crowds, and impres­sive ear­ly polling results, the left wing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has ample rea­son to be hopeful.

Ranked choice voting (RCV) has a long, albeit niche history in the United States.

Yet, there is a grow­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty that a Sanders pri­ma­ry vic­to­ry may be unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic. As Sanders sup­port­ers know so well, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee sets rules that, whether inten­tion­al­ly or not, can dis­em­pow­er seg­ments of the pri­ma­ry elec­torate. And the way con­ven­tion del­e­gate allo­ca­tion rules are cur­rent­ly set, tens of thou­sands of pri­ma­ry vot­ers will like­ly have no influ­ence in the selec­tion of the 2020 pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, which, strange­ly enough, might actu­al­ly ben­e­fit Sanders.

The Democ­rats allo­cate del­e­gates pro­por­tion­al­ly for all can­di­dates that gar­ner at least 15 per­cent of the vote in a giv­en state. In a high­ly com­pet­i­tive pri­ma­ry, though, few can­di­dates can meet this thresh­old as vot­ers are spread thin. As such, vot­ers who sup­port these can­di­dates will have their votes effec­tive­ly wast­ed. Ear­ly polls sug­gest upwards of 50 per­cent of the vote could fall into this cat­e­go­ry, as only Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden con­sis­tent­ly poll above 15 per­cent.

Sanders could poten­tial­ly win ear­ly states with a small plu­ral­i­ty — say 30 per­cent — with most pri­ma­ry vot­ers split among can­di­dates below the thresh­old. With enough nar­row vic­to­ries, and the inevitable win­now­ing of the field, Sanders could win enough del­e­gates under these con­di­tions to become the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee on the first bal­lot at the DNC convention.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee and state Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ties make the rules, so Sanders is by no means to blame for this sit­u­a­tion. And bar­ring some major shift, whichev­er can­di­date even­tu­al­ly wins will suf­fer from an equal­ly appalling num­ber of wast­ed votes. For a mass move­ment-based can­di­da­cy that, at its core is about empow­er­ing Amer­i­cans in the polit­i­cal process, though, there is an onus to at least high­light the prob­lem and attempt to fix it, espe­cial­ly if a solu­tion is obtain­able — which it is.

To avoid unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic allo­ca­tion of del­e­gates, states could imple­ment ranked choice vot­ing for the pres­i­den­tial pri­maries.

Ranked choice vot­ing (RCV) has a long, albeit niche his­to­ry in the Unit­ed States, but its most famous appli­ca­tion is in Maine, where the sys­tem deter­mines fed­er­al elec­tions. RCV’s basic premise is sim­ple: allow vot­ers to rank can­di­dates in order of pref­er­ence, and if no can­di­date reach­es a giv­en thresh­old — in most cas­es a major­i­ty of the vote — the last place candidate’s votes are re-allo­cat­ed accord­ing to his or her vot­ers’ sec­ond choic­es. This process con­tin­ues until a can­di­date reach­es the thresh­old. In the pres­i­den­tial pri­maries, RCV would sequen­tial­ly real­lo­cate the votes of can­di­dates below 15 per­cent until all remain­ing can­di­dates are above 15 per­cent — min­i­miz­ing wast­ed votes.

Not all states will be able to imple­ment ranked choice vot­ing in time for the 2020 pri­ma­ry. For one, as Rob Richie, CEO of Fair­Vote, explains, ​“Few states have a turnkey solu­tion to run RCV eas­i­ly in pri­maries”, as many states use out­dat­ed, RCV-incom­pat­i­ble vot­ing machine tech­nol­o­gy. More­over, accord­ing to Richie, state par­ties will have to include RCV pro­vi­sions in their final del­e­gate allo­ca­tion plans due by ear­ly May and any req­ui­site state laws must be passed — big tasks to accom­plish on a short time­frame. For­tu­nate­ly, there is a grow­ing RCV move­ment in key ear­ly pri­ma­ry and cau­cus states that may well clear these hurdles.

The most sub­stan­tial progress on RCV has been made in cau­cus states. Cau­cus­es, unlike pri­maries, are run entire­ly by the polit­i­cal par­ties, so no leg­is­la­tion is required to make a change. And state par­ties are ris­ing to the occa­sion. In Feb­ru­ary, the Iowa Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty pro­posed using ranked choice vot­ing for those who can­not attend the in-per­son cau­cus. The Neva­da, Hawaii and Alas­ka Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ties recent­ly fol­lowed suit, inte­grat­ing ranked choice vot­ing in their del­e­gate allo­ca­tion plans.

“Cau­cus states are a log­i­cal place to win RCV first,” Richie notes. ​“Vot­ers in cau­cus­es have more pow­er than in pri­maries because they get a back­up choice. Once cau­cus­es allowed ear­ly vot­ing to expand the elec­torate [after new DNC rules were issued], RCV was the best way to give them the same pow­er of a back­up choice.”

Leg­isla­tive efforts are also under­way to reform the Maine and New Hamp­shire pri­maries. On Wednes­day, March 20, dozens of Maine vot­ers arrived at the Maine Vet­er­ans and Legal Affairs Com­mit­tee to tes­ti­fy in sup­port of LD 1083, a bill to expand the state’s use of ranked choice vot­ing to the pres­i­den­tial pri­maries and gen­er­al elec­tion. LD 1083 has a real chance of pass­ing, as no one report­ed­ly tes­ti­fied against it and the bill has the sup­port of Sen­ate lead­er­ship.

“Maine vot­ers have made it clear they sup­port hav­ing more choice in their elec­tions and the bill to allow that for the high­est office in the land looks on tar­get to pass in time for 2020,” for­mer Maine State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and long­time RCV advo­cate Diane Rus­sell tells In These Times.

Across the bor­der in New Hamp­shire, a small but ded­i­cat­ed coali­tion of state leg­is­la­tors and vot­ers have advanced the issue. (In full dis­clo­sure, I have been help­ing lead this effort.) In Jan­u­ary, an omnibus RCV bill was intro­duced in the state house and was met with sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic sup­port. What was sched­uled to be a 30-minute hear­ing on the bill in the House Elec­tion Law Com­mit­tee last­ed almost two hours, with the vast major­i­ty of speak­ers tes­ti­fy­ing in favor of the mea­sure. The bill ulti­mate­ly failed to advance out of com­mit­tee, but there is now grow­ing inter­est in pass­ing a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bill in the state sen­ate.

Even if RCV fails to make it into the 2020 pri­ma­ry, ener­gy direct­ed towards this fight is hard­ly in vain. The push for RCV in pres­i­den­tial pri­maries is hap­pen­ing in the con­text of a grow­ing move­ment for RCV in state elec­tions. In Mass­a­chu­setts, for exam­ple, advo­cates are prepar­ing to put RCV on the bal­lot in 2020 — that is, if they don’t pres­sure state leg­is­la­tors to pass it first.

At this point, it is a com­plete unknown which pres­i­den­tial can­di­date RCV would ben­e­fit. But Sanders and his sup­port­ers should vocal­ly sup­port pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry RCV regard­less, for when it comes to democ­ra­cy, the goal must be inclu­sion over self-inter­est. And if Sanders were to win the pri­ma­ry, he could trans­form con­cerns about demo­c­ra­t­ic legit­i­ma­cy into a cam­paign pitch, point­ing to wast­ed votes as anoth­er exam­ple of the bro­ken democ­ra­cy we all need to fix.