Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ranked elections has only 36 percent support in Mass., poll shows

Voters are evenly split on whether Massachusetts should become the second state to conduct most elections using ranked-choice voting, a decision they will make in November.

With 36 percent for the switch and 36 percent against it, 28 percent remain undecided in a poll released Tuesday — mainly because they are confused by the alternative election method or haven't yet tried to figure it out.

The numbers don't augur well for proponents of ranked elections, because support for ballot measures tends to fade as Election Day nears. At the same time, there's minimal organized opposition to bringing co-called RCV to the state, giving advocates continued hope of winning over the skeptical or ignorant in the next dozen weeks.


"I wouldn't be discouraged if I were a proponent because there is a lot of time and there's nobody making ... strong, well-funded counterarguments," Evan Horowitz of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University told WBUR, the public radio station in Boston that commissioned the poll. "But I do think it's a reason to kind of reassess how much outreach has to be done."

The Yes on 2 campaign — which has bipartisan leadership headlined by former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick and former Republican Gov. Bill Weld — says it's raised more than $2 million to push the referendum and will launch its advertising campaign after Labor Day.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Advocates argue the system produces more consensus-driven politicians, tamps down negative campaigning, weakens the polarized red-blue hold on elective offices and boosts the prospects of women and candidates of color. The poll suggests that none of those arguments has won over the electorate yet.

"On each one of these things, you see a lot of people saying either 'It will make no difference to that' or 'I don't know whether it would,' " said Steve Koczela of MassINC, which conducted the poll of 501 likely voters last weekend. (It had a 4.4-percentage-point margin of error.)

The measure would switch primary contests and general elections for Congress, statewide executive positions, the Legislature and some countywide posts to RCV starting in 2022. Neighboring Maine is the only other state where the system is in such wide use, but it's also being used for local elections in a score of cities across the country — with New York joining the list next year.

Massachusetts, however, was in the vanguard of ranked elections because the city council and school board of Cambridge has used the system since 1941.

In RCV contests, voters are permitted to list candidates in order of preference. One who receives a majority of the top rankings wins outright. Otherwise, the one with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated, those ballots are redistributed based on their second place designations, and this "instant runoff" process repeats until one candidate has a majority of support.

Read More

Jar full of american coins.

Jar full of american coins.

Getty Images, MariuszBlach

Congress Bill Spotlight: Suspending Pennies and Nickels for 10 Years

The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about but that often don't get the right news coverage.

Trump recently discontinued production of the one-cent coin. What about the five-cent coin too?

Keep ReadingShow less
​The U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Constitution.
Getty Images, Bill Oxford

Democracy on the Edge: Take Action Now To Maintain the Constitution

Democracy is in danger. Voter suppression efforts are once again on the rise, most recently embodied in the reintroduction of the “SAVE Act.” Initially passed by the House in 2024 and revived again in April 2025, the bill proposes new identification standards for voting.

It calls to eliminate the use of driver’s licenses and state IDs and require birth certificates instead. While billed as an election integrity measure, this legislation is a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, particularly the elderly, minorities, and low-income Americans who may lack access to original documentation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Guatemalan workers farming tomatoes using tools provided by the UVG Climate Smart Agriculture Project.

Guatemalan workers farming tomatoes using tools provided by the UVG Climate Smart Agriculture Project.

Rolando Cifuentes Velásquez.

Seeds of Abandonment: How USAID Cuts Left Thousands of Farmers in Guatemala Struggling

Maria Lopez was thriving.

Her tomato farm in rural Guatemala was flourishing since a worker from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG) came in to show her climate-smart agricultural practices in her drought-stricken community.

Keep ReadingShow less
Defining the Democracy Movement: Aditi Juneja
- YouTube

Defining the Democracy Movement: Aditi Juneja

The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.

Aditi Juneja is the Executive Director of Democracy 2076, an organization dedicated to reimagining democracy for the next generation. Democracy 2076 is intentionally taking a long-range view of democracy, bringing together diverse stakeholders to explore what democracy should look like within a 50-year time horizon.

Keep ReadingShow less