By Lily Guiney
Gongwer News Service
Michigan voters may see a proposal on 2026 ballots to move the state to ranked choice voting and institute several other election changes – including moving state primary elections up to June from August.
The advocacy group Rank MI Vote believes this is the natural progression of reforms made via petition initiative in 2018 and 2022.
“It’s likely that the next governor could win the race with less than 45 or 40 percent of the vote, and we think that Michigan voters deserve better. They deserve candidates who’ve won with over 50 percent of Michiganders’ support if they’re going to represent Michiganders,” Rank MI Vote Executive Director Pat Zabawa said. “And that’s what ranked choice voting ensures.”
Ranked choice voting, or RCV, has grown in popularity alongside the increasing phenomenon of candidates winning elections without winning a majority of voters in those jurisdictions.
RCV proponents argue the method ensures elected officials are more connected to and responsible for the communities they represent when they’ve been elected by a majority of voters.
Zabawa cited bipartisan examples of candidates winning Michigan elections without a majority of the voters’ support in recent years, including U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Detroit), who won his seat in the 13th U.S. House District with only 28 percent of the vote in 2022, and Tudor Dixon’s victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary that same year with less than 40 percent of the vote.
Under a ranked choice system like the one being put forth as a ballot petition initiative by Rank MI Vote, voters would rank all the candidates on the ballot in both primary and general elections, at the state and federal, and some local levels. If a candidate does not receive over 50 percent of the vote in the initial balloting, an automatic runoff occurs to determine a winner.
On ballots with more than two candidates, the petition provides that if no candidate hits 50 percent, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and another round of counting is triggered with voters’ next-ranked candidate until a winner is determined.
As of April 2025, 63 jurisdictions across 24 U.S. states use some form of ranked choice voting, including the entire states of Alaska and Maine. New York City’s mayoral primary elections are currently making national headlines as Democratic candidates cross-endorse one another and encourage voters to rank within their coalitions.
“It’s used by over 13 million, almost 14 million voters in the United States. To them, voting is ranking in some way,” Zabawa said. “We think (more positive campaigning is) a great benefit of ranked choice voting, creating those coalitional campaigns, and not only coalitional campaigns and positive campaigns, but also results for voters in which, when those candidates are guaranteed to be elected by over 50 percent of voters in that jurisdiction, wherever their jurisdiction is, they’ll be sure to work on policies positively for those voters, rather than running not only oppositional campaign, but oppositional governance in which they’re just trying to block policies. This way, RCV also incentivizes them to run positive campaigns and enact policies that benefit voters.”
Confusion is a potential obstacle for Rank MI Vote if its petition makes it onto 2026 ballots – changing the way people vote is a tall order, especially via ballot proposal, which many voters find hard to understand.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, when asked by Gongwer News Service if she’d favor a ranked choice voting amendment, declined to take a stance on the issue itself but said the success of RCV, if enacted, will likely depend on the public’s awareness and understanding of how it works.
“It’s important for citizens to take this period, if it does make it on the ballot, and educate themselves about it. Because if it were to come to fruition in the state, its success would depend on how informed voters were about the process, how to use it, and then how our clerks are also able to adjust and educate voters appropriately,” Benson said. “So, the next step, if citizens want to move in that direction, is the ballot initiative process, and we’ll see how that plays out in the coming months.”
Zabawa noted that in the two areas where RCV is used, despite having very different demographics, most voters found it simple and easy to understand. In New York City, 95 percent of voters found RCV to be simple after using it for the first time, and in Alaska, 85 percent had the same view when surveyed.
Any change to election laws, he said, requires both local and state-driven public awareness work to make sure both voters and election administrators adhere to the regulations.
Some opponents of RCV have claimed it goes against the “one person, one vote” doctrine under which U.S. elections operate. Rep. Bryan Posthumus (R-Rockford), who is also at the helm of an election-related petition initiative for 2026, said he believes it conflicts with the ethos of majority rule.
“I’m a firm believer in the one person, one vote concept,” Posthumus said. “Why should somebody whose candidate loses get more votes?”
Zabawa rejected the idea that RCV doesn’t adhere to the one person, one vote rule.
“RCV is an instant runoff method. It does preserve the one person, one vote methodology, and courts have confirmed that,” he said. “What ranked choice voting is, it’s an instant runoff. If the first rankings result in a winner with over 50 percent of the vote, then they’re declared the winner. It’s similar to a situation in which you run a primary to winnow down the candidate that a party wants for the general election. It just happens at one time, on one ballot as an instant runoff. It does preserve one person, one vote. It’s merely a ranking method.”
Posthumus’s group, the Committee to Protect Voters’ Rights, is one of two seeking to put proposed constitutional amendments requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote on the 2026 ballot. When asked if he’s concerned about the possibility of three election-related proposals on the ballot next year becoming confusing for voters or leading to lowered participation in the proposal section of the ballot, Posthumus referenced a Gallup poll from last year in which roughly 83 percent of respondents around the country said they favored requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time.
“I think the message will carry the day,” Posthumus said of his group’s proposal. “A majority of Michiganders believe that we should prevent noncitizens from voting, and I think that will carry us through.”
Also included in Rank MI Vote’s petition language are a handful of other voting reforms. Zabawa said these are the next steps after sweeping changes made to Michigan election law in 2018 and 2022, including a requirement of 140 days between a primary and a general election, assurances that those in line to vote when a polling place closes will still be able to cast a ballot, a paper ballot requirement in all elections and provisions about timely notice of any changes to polling places or voting procedures.
Zabawa said Michigan has an irregularly late state primary and requiring it to take place earlier in the year would ensure voters have enough time to become properly informed about the slate of candidates before them and could see increased voter turnout during a time when people aren’t away or unplugged on summer vacation.
As for the other reforms included in the petition, he said Rank MI Vote is aiming to increase voters’ agency over the elections process.
“All of these are important voting rights that we think are also an add on to the voting rights that were added to the Michigan Constitution by voters in in 2018 and 2022. We want to make sure that that voters do have the right to wait in line, that they are able to receive notification of election changes, especially since we’ve seen there’s been a lot of litigation that can create issues that voters aren’t aware of that we want to make sure they are definitely aware of,” Zabawa said. “Their power as voters also comes from being able to be notified of how to vote, like the amendment says, changes to in regards to how they vote that they might not be aware of, and make sure that they feel that they can vote if they if the polling place closes and they’re still waiting in line and ensure that they can feel secure in their vote by having a verifiable paper record.”
The Rank MI Vote petition will be before the Board of State Canvassers next week at its June meeting for approval of a 100-word summary, after which the group will be able to begin gathering signatures to make the ballot.
Gongwer News Service
Michigan voters may see a proposal on 2026 ballots to move the state to ranked choice voting and institute several other election changes – including moving state primary elections up to June from August.
The advocacy group Rank MI Vote believes this is the natural progression of reforms made via petition initiative in 2018 and 2022.
“It’s likely that the next governor could win the race with less than 45 or 40 percent of the vote, and we think that Michigan voters deserve better. They deserve candidates who’ve won with over 50 percent of Michiganders’ support if they’re going to represent Michiganders,” Rank MI Vote Executive Director Pat Zabawa said. “And that’s what ranked choice voting ensures.”
Ranked choice voting, or RCV, has grown in popularity alongside the increasing phenomenon of candidates winning elections without winning a majority of voters in those jurisdictions.
RCV proponents argue the method ensures elected officials are more connected to and responsible for the communities they represent when they’ve been elected by a majority of voters.
Zabawa cited bipartisan examples of candidates winning Michigan elections without a majority of the voters’ support in recent years, including U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Detroit), who won his seat in the 13th U.S. House District with only 28 percent of the vote in 2022, and Tudor Dixon’s victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary that same year with less than 40 percent of the vote.
Under a ranked choice system like the one being put forth as a ballot petition initiative by Rank MI Vote, voters would rank all the candidates on the ballot in both primary and general elections, at the state and federal, and some local levels. If a candidate does not receive over 50 percent of the vote in the initial balloting, an automatic runoff occurs to determine a winner.
On ballots with more than two candidates, the petition provides that if no candidate hits 50 percent, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and another round of counting is triggered with voters’ next-ranked candidate until a winner is determined.
As of April 2025, 63 jurisdictions across 24 U.S. states use some form of ranked choice voting, including the entire states of Alaska and Maine. New York City’s mayoral primary elections are currently making national headlines as Democratic candidates cross-endorse one another and encourage voters to rank within their coalitions.
“It’s used by over 13 million, almost 14 million voters in the United States. To them, voting is ranking in some way,” Zabawa said. “We think (more positive campaigning is) a great benefit of ranked choice voting, creating those coalitional campaigns, and not only coalitional campaigns and positive campaigns, but also results for voters in which, when those candidates are guaranteed to be elected by over 50 percent of voters in that jurisdiction, wherever their jurisdiction is, they’ll be sure to work on policies positively for those voters, rather than running not only oppositional campaign, but oppositional governance in which they’re just trying to block policies. This way, RCV also incentivizes them to run positive campaigns and enact policies that benefit voters.”
Confusion is a potential obstacle for Rank MI Vote if its petition makes it onto 2026 ballots – changing the way people vote is a tall order, especially via ballot proposal, which many voters find hard to understand.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, when asked by Gongwer News Service if she’d favor a ranked choice voting amendment, declined to take a stance on the issue itself but said the success of RCV, if enacted, will likely depend on the public’s awareness and understanding of how it works.
“It’s important for citizens to take this period, if it does make it on the ballot, and educate themselves about it. Because if it were to come to fruition in the state, its success would depend on how informed voters were about the process, how to use it, and then how our clerks are also able to adjust and educate voters appropriately,” Benson said. “So, the next step, if citizens want to move in that direction, is the ballot initiative process, and we’ll see how that plays out in the coming months.”
Zabawa noted that in the two areas where RCV is used, despite having very different demographics, most voters found it simple and easy to understand. In New York City, 95 percent of voters found RCV to be simple after using it for the first time, and in Alaska, 85 percent had the same view when surveyed.
Any change to election laws, he said, requires both local and state-driven public awareness work to make sure both voters and election administrators adhere to the regulations.
Some opponents of RCV have claimed it goes against the “one person, one vote” doctrine under which U.S. elections operate. Rep. Bryan Posthumus (R-Rockford), who is also at the helm of an election-related petition initiative for 2026, said he believes it conflicts with the ethos of majority rule.
“I’m a firm believer in the one person, one vote concept,” Posthumus said. “Why should somebody whose candidate loses get more votes?”
Zabawa rejected the idea that RCV doesn’t adhere to the one person, one vote rule.
“RCV is an instant runoff method. It does preserve the one person, one vote methodology, and courts have confirmed that,” he said. “What ranked choice voting is, it’s an instant runoff. If the first rankings result in a winner with over 50 percent of the vote, then they’re declared the winner. It’s similar to a situation in which you run a primary to winnow down the candidate that a party wants for the general election. It just happens at one time, on one ballot as an instant runoff. It does preserve one person, one vote. It’s merely a ranking method.”
Posthumus’s group, the Committee to Protect Voters’ Rights, is one of two seeking to put proposed constitutional amendments requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote on the 2026 ballot. When asked if he’s concerned about the possibility of three election-related proposals on the ballot next year becoming confusing for voters or leading to lowered participation in the proposal section of the ballot, Posthumus referenced a Gallup poll from last year in which roughly 83 percent of respondents around the country said they favored requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time.
“I think the message will carry the day,” Posthumus said of his group’s proposal. “A majority of Michiganders believe that we should prevent noncitizens from voting, and I think that will carry us through.”
Also included in Rank MI Vote’s petition language are a handful of other voting reforms. Zabawa said these are the next steps after sweeping changes made to Michigan election law in 2018 and 2022, including a requirement of 140 days between a primary and a general election, assurances that those in line to vote when a polling place closes will still be able to cast a ballot, a paper ballot requirement in all elections and provisions about timely notice of any changes to polling places or voting procedures.
Zabawa said Michigan has an irregularly late state primary and requiring it to take place earlier in the year would ensure voters have enough time to become properly informed about the slate of candidates before them and could see increased voter turnout during a time when people aren’t away or unplugged on summer vacation.
As for the other reforms included in the petition, he said Rank MI Vote is aiming to increase voters’ agency over the elections process.
“All of these are important voting rights that we think are also an add on to the voting rights that were added to the Michigan Constitution by voters in in 2018 and 2022. We want to make sure that that voters do have the right to wait in line, that they are able to receive notification of election changes, especially since we’ve seen there’s been a lot of litigation that can create issues that voters aren’t aware of that we want to make sure they are definitely aware of,” Zabawa said. “Their power as voters also comes from being able to be notified of how to vote, like the amendment says, changes to in regards to how they vote that they might not be aware of, and make sure that they feel that they can vote if they if the polling place closes and they’re still waiting in line and ensure that they can feel secure in their vote by having a verifiable paper record.”
The Rank MI Vote petition will be before the Board of State Canvassers next week at its June meeting for approval of a 100-word summary, after which the group will be able to begin gathering signatures to make the ballot.
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