Experts and state elections officials back RCV for 2028 presidential primary; clerks seek time for implementation

A former county clerk who administered ranked‑choice elections and the Vermont deputy secretary of state told the Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee that ranked‑choice voting (RCV) can be run on existing tabulation systems and recommended a multiyear implementation lead time if lawmakers adopt the reform for presidential primaries.

“After conducting municipal elections in Utah using ranked choice, we also surveyed voters that had participated and ... had overwhelming support for the use of ranked choice,” testified Daniels, a former county clerk and auditor from Utah County who described his office’s experience implementing RCV in municipal and party nominating contests. He said the county used existing ballot‑printing and optical‑scan equipment, then ran an open‑source tabulation utility (RCTab) to perform the instant runoff calculation.

Lauren Hubert, deputy secretary of state, said the office supports RCV for the presidential primary only and prefers enactment in 2025 to allow clerks and voters sufficient preparation time for a 2028 implementation. “Ranked choice voting is something that the secretary of state supports for the presidential primary ... and we support it being implemented for the 2028 election,” Hubert said.

John Chan, elections director, said the secretary of state’s office has spoken with vendors and reviewed national experiences; he told the committee the state’s current tabulator vendor can support ranked‑choice tabulation and that the next generation of certified tabulators will be “even more seamless” for RCV.

Witnesses said practical implementation has three components: ballot design, equipment and voter education. Daniels described tests his office performed — sample ballots with students and assisted living residents — and said the ballot format was intuitive. He recommended candidate training, tutorial videos and piggybacking RCV messaging on existing election mailings to reduce costs. Daniels said the municipalities that adopted RCV spent modest sums on outreach (postcards and videos) and that creating the content was inexpensive; distribution was the primary expense.

Committee members pressed officials on specific operational concerns, including hand‑count towns. The deputy secretary of state said Maine and other jurisdictions with hand counts have implemented RCV and that Vermont’s roughly 100 hand‑count towns are a consideration for the state plan. On the question of exhausted ballots (ballots that list only some preferences and therefore stop counting when listed candidates are eliminated), Daniels said exhausted ballots typically appear at single‑digit percentages and had not decisively changed outcomes in his experience; exhausted‑ballot rates vary by contest type and turnout.

The secretary of state’s office opposed an automatic sunset language in the bill that would repeal RCV on a fixed date; officials recommended instead a required implementation report after the 2028 primary so lawmakers could assess results before deciding whether to expand or alter the method.

No formal vote or final legislative action occurred in the transcript excerpt; committee members scheduled follow‑up sessions and said they planned more technical and operational briefings.