The current “one-choice only” voting method often produces undemocratic primary results, especially with a large number of candidates. That is because both political parties require presidential primary candidates to receive a minimum percentage of votes in order to win any delegates. For the Democratic Party, that threshold is 15 percent, while the Republicans require 10 percent of votes for a candidate to win any delegates. Since only candidates with votes above the threshold are awarded delegates in each state’s primary, multiple candidates could end up receiving a significant share of votes combined without winning any delegates. This vote-splitting is especially likely to occur between a group of ideologically similar candidates.

The use of “one-choice only” ballots for elections with large fields thus often leads to unfair and unrepresentative outcomes. Voters for candidates who do not exceed the delegate threshold cast “wasted” votes that have no effect whatsoever on the primary results, while a candidate who received a minority share of votes above the threshold could end up winning a majority of the state’s delegates. Because New Hampshire, as the first primary state, often has a primary election with a very large field, it is especially vulnerable to vote-splitting under the current system.

The Democratic primary in 2020 is likely to suffer from this problem if the state continues to use “one-choice” only voting. Here could be a dozen or more viable candidates vying to be the Democratic nominee in 2020. Since the Democratic party requires candidates to receive 15% of the vote to be eligible for delegates, it is possible that a substantial percentage of the vote could be cast for candidates below the threshold to win delegates, leading to tens of thousands of “wasted” votes.

This has happened before. In the 1976 New Hampshire Democratic primary, 38.9% of votes were below the threshold. The vote in 1992 and 2004 was similarly fractured leading to 31.52% and 34% of votes wasted. New Hampshire, by implementing RCV, would solve this problem and provide political parties the information they need to prevent an unrepresentative result.

Further, with a large field of candidates, a candidate could “win” that primary with just a small fraction of the overall vote. This happens frequently to both parties: in 2016, Donald Trump won the Republican primary with 35% of the vote, and in 1996 Pat Buchanan won it with only 27% of the vote. On the Democratic side, John Kerry won with 38% of the vote in 2004; Paul Tsongas won with 33% in 1992; and Jimmy Carter won with 29% of the vote in 1976. New Hampshire sets the tone for the rest of primary season—should the New Hampshire voters be very divided in 2020, the New Hampshire primary results will muddy the political waters with the frontrunner winning only a tiny share of the vote.

Yes! Votes are wasted far too often in New Hampshire’s presidential primary. In fact, since 1976, approximately 19 percent of the Democratic primary vote has been wasted because of the threshold needed to win delegates. And since 1992, 15 percent of the votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary has been wasted.

The 2016 New Hampshire Republican primary was particularly illustrative of the problem. The 10% viability threshold prevented Chris Christie (7.4%), Carly Fiorina (4.1%), and Ben Carson (2.3%) from earning any delegates despite collectively receiving 13.8% of the vote. The votes of those who prefered these candidates did not count at all. But, if the threshold for Republican candidates were raised to 15%, an astonishing 32.1% of the overall vote would have been “wasted.” And if the threshold had been 16%, Donald Trump would have won all of New Hampshire’s delegates even though he received only 35.2% of the vote.

Given how many candidates might run for the Democratic nomination in 2020, it is possible that more than half the vote could be cast for candidates below the threshold to win delegates, leading to tens of thousands of “wasted” votes.

No. The evidence shows just the opposite: RCV is simple yet informative. Most voters love it.

Earlier this month, Maine became the first state to decide a federal election using ranked choice voting. Despite having almost no resources to implement new rules and engage in voter education, things went very smoothly. Voter turnout increased from the last midterm election, far fewer voters skipped the RCV races for Congress this year than in recent elections for those same office without RCV, and more than 99.8% percent of voters in the congressional races cast a valid ballot.

The recent success in Maine is not surprising, because RCV actually has a long track record of success in the United States. In total, 18 municipalities across the country use or soon will use RCV, and its earliest implementation was in 1912. Moreover, it is the method of vote counting endorsed by Robert’s Rules of Order when it is impractical to engage in repeated voting and is commonly used internationally for party elections—for instance, all of Canada’s parties pick their leaders using RCV.

For more information about the history of ranked choice voting, check out FairVote’s summary.

Legally, primaries are conducted by the state government, but it is the political parties that ultimately decide what to do with the results under their own rules for allocating delegates. If RCV were implemented, New Hampshire would conduct and then publish the regular round-by-round count using RCV. The State would turn over all the ballot data over to the parties who can allocate delegates however they want.

If a party wants to use proportional allocation, for instance, they can use the provided data to eliminate candidates sequentially until all remaining candidates are above the threshold for at least one delegate and allocate delegates accordingly. If they want to use winner-take-all, they use the data to award the delegates to the candidate that, after re-tallying of the votes, receives the majority of the votes.

In theory, it is true that the political parties could also choose to ignore the RCV data provided by the state. But that would ignore the will of the voters and the rights of the states to conduct elections that maximize citizen participation, We are confident that the parties will respect the will of the state legislature—and the voters that granted their approval to it—by allocating New Hampshire’s delegates using RCV.

Yes! RCV improves the quality of the campaign itself. Candidates under RCV have a real interest in broadening their appeal and learning about the views of more voters as they look for common ground rather than division. That is because it is important not only to become the first choice of some voters, but also be the second choice for even those voters who have another favorite. Candidates thus have a strong incentive not to denigrate or insult the candidates whose supporters may still rank them highly on election day.

As a result, political parties would leave the primary not bruised but emboldened. Nominees would not have a year of vicious attacks gifted to their general election opponent. And voters too would benefit, because those voters whose votes are typically wasted would instead be used to impact the election. Needless to say, encouraging more positivity from candidates and voters in our presidential elections would be a welcome change, especially compared to the vicious 2016 election cycle.

New Hampshire holds the special status as the first in the nation primary. Thus, the state, has an important role—indeed, an obligation—to provide the political parties and the entire nation with as much information as possible. RCV, which provides parties with much more information about voter preferences than the current system, is thus a perfect match for this State.

Moreover, because New Hampshire holds the first primary, it will inevitably be the primary featuring the most candidates. (Many candidates wait until after the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary to drop out). Of all the primaries, then, New Hampshire is most vulnerable to wasted votes due to party thresholds.

Last, there is also so much media attention for the first primary contest. If New Hampshire adopted RCV for its primary, RCV would move to the front of many political discussions. Indeed, RCV would go mainstream. This, we hope, would create a critical mass of support needed to spread the idea to many more presidential primaries and state and federal elections across the country.