Following the New York City primaries last month, the debate over ranked-choice voting is heating up elsewhere across the country.
The sixth largest city in Michigan and the most populous county in Washington are both considering adopting ranked-choice voting for future elections. But in Alaska, a lawsuit is challenging the state's new election system, which includes ranking candidates for general elections.
Ranked-choice voting saw a successful citywide debut in New York City, despite a tallying blunder by the Board of Elections. While some critics tried to blame the alternative voting method for the issues, proponents noted the mishap was caused by human error unrelated to RCV.
Outside of the Big Apple, ranked-choice voting was also used for the Virginia Republican Party's nominating contest for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. And this year almost two dozen cities in Utah have opted to switch to ranked-choice voting for mayoral and city council races.
Here are three more places where the alternative voting method is making waves:
Michigan
On Monday, the Lansing City Council moved to put a ranked-choice voting initiative on the November ballot. If voters approve the measure, the new system will be adopted at the beginning of next year for mayoral, city clerk and city council elections.
The council also approved a second ballot initiative that would eliminate local primary elections if the ranked-choice voting system is adopted. Instead, there would be a general election with a wider pool of candidates.
Currently, the only city in Michigan that uses RCV is Eastpointe.
Washington
Council members in King County, which includes Seattle, announced this week that their campaign for ranked-choice voting will be put on hold temporarily.
Last month, Girmay Zahilay and Jeanne Kohl-Welles proposed a ballot initiative to adopt RCV for certain county-level races, including the county council. The original plan was to have the new system, if approved by voters, go into effect next year. But Zahilay tweeted Monday that their proposal will be delayed until 2022 due to time constraints brought on by ballot initiative deadlines.
Earlier this year, a bill that would have allowed cities and counties in Washington to decide which elections, if any, to use ranked-choice voting failed to pass through the Legislature. King County is exempt from that prohibition.
Alaska
Last year, Alaska became the second state, after Maine, to adopt ranked-choice voting for statewide elections. Starting next year, Alaska will use a new system in which the top-four primary candidates, regardless of party, will advance to a ranked-choice general election.
Despite a majority of voters approving these reforms during last year's election, some Alaskans don't want to see the changes go into effect. This week a judge heard a case that challenges the new election system for alleged constitutional violations.
The lawsuit was filed inDecember, a day after the election results were certified, by Alaska Independence Party Chairman Robert Bird, Libertarian Scott Kohlhass and Republican attorney Kenneth Jacobus.
"Marginalizing political parties, as this system does, harms the right of Alaskans to free political association, and allows those with money to take control," Jacobus argued in a recent court filing.
However, Alaska's assistant attorney general, Margaret Paton Walsh, argued the new system does not violate the constitution and the plaintiffs' claim is just a policy objection.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.