On Feb. 24, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun (R) signed legislation prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting in the state, making Indiana the 19th state to ban RCV nationwide.

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is a system where voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. In the RCV system most commonly used in the United States, a candidate who wins a majority of first-preference votes is the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. 

Ballots that ranked an eliminated candidate as their first, or highest choice, depending on the round, are then reevaluated and counted as first-preference ballots for the next-highest-ranked candidate in that round. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority of ballots. The process is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority.

Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine use RCV for at least some statewide elections. Municipalities in 14 states use RCV for local elections.

Indiana’s new law states that an election “may not be determined by ranked choice voting” and a “candidate may not be nominated for or elected to an office by means of ranked choice voting.”

Sen. Blake Doriot (R), who sponsored the bill, said during a committee hearing in January that he found RCV “somewhat distressing because in the United States we have always been one vote, one person.”

Speaking during the committee hearing, state Sen. J.D. Ford (D) said, “We already don’t have it [RCV] in our state. We should be focusing on bills that get us out from the bottom in terms of voter participation in our state.”

The legislation passed the Indiana Senate on Jan. 20 on a 38-9 vote, with 37 Republicans and one Democrat voting in favor and nine Democrats voting against. It was then approved on a 58-30 vote in the state House on Feb. 17, with 58 Republicans voting in favor and 28 Democrats and two Republicans voting against.

The prohibition on RCV in Indiana takes effect on July 1. No municipalities in the state currently use RCV. In 2020, the Indiana Republican Party held a mail-in, RCV contest for lieutenant governor and attorney general nominations due to the coronavirus pandemic.

On Feb. 25, the Ohio House approved a prohibition on RCV on a 65-27 vote after the Ohio Senate passed the measure in May 2025. The House added in a separate provision on the public inspection of candidate petitions, meaning the Senate will need to vote on the bill again before it can be sent to Gov. Mike DeWine (R).

So far this year, state legislators have introduced or retained from the 2025 session 18 bills to prohibit or repeal RCV. 

Legislators have introduced or retained 36 bills that would allow or require RCV. Two of those bills, in Maine and Virginia, have passed at least one chamber of a state legislature.

In 2025, six states enacted legislation prohibiting RCV. Six states also passed laws banning RCV in 2024.

Click here to read more about ranked-choice voting in the United States.