RCV MAPS - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

RCV Maps is the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center’s primary research project. This project is a state-by-state analysis of voting equipment ranked choice voting (RCV) capability in each state.

RCV Maps stands for Ranked Choice Voting Multistate Assessment Project.

RCV Maps (RCV Multistate Assessment Project) provides users a starting point for understanding what will be needed for any state, county, or city to implement RCV. Each state assessment includes:

• A high-level introduction to RCV election administration best practices.
• Analysis of the voting systems used by each state election administration division (such as county-level or city-level) to run elections to determine how ready they are to run RCV elections.

Each state assessment contains a mix of research and analysis specific to that state and a standard set of information. Standard information pertains to RCV and election administration in general and repeats across each assessment. This information introduces best practices and standard procedures for RCV implementation in the United States today. The details of RCV implementation in any jurisdiction will be based both on these pre-existing RCV practices and pre-existing election implementation practices in a given jurisdiction.

RCV Maps includes all 50 states and Washington, DC. We hope to include U.S. territories in future editions.

If you need more detailed analysis in your state, contact us at info@rcvresources.org or 1-833-VOTE-RCV (868-3728) so we can identify your needs and determine what analysis we can provide. 

If you want to learn more about RCV under the election laws in your state, fill out the legal roundtable intake form. 

These assessments will be updated every two years on the odd year. The next update will be in 2025. Note that links to external websites may change in that time, so links in each assessment may break.

Scores in each state are based on the number of local election administration jurisdictions (counties, municipalities, parishes, boroughs, etc.) with voting equipment we classify as RCV capable. We divide the number of jurisdictions with RCV-capable equipment by the total number of election jurisdictions in the state - that number is the RCV Readiness Score for a state. We then label that state by the following four-step scale: 

• RCV Ready: 100% of jurisdictions in X State have RCV-capable hardware and software.
• RCV Capable: 100% of jurisdictions in X State have RCV-capable hardware but may need software upgrades.
• Prepping for RCV: between 25% and 99% of jurisdictions in X State have RCV-capable hardware.
• Updates Needed for RCV: between 0% and 24% of jurisdictions in X State have RCV-capable hardware.

We also calculate the share of registered voters living in each type of jurisdiction. That information is not used in scoring but is provided for additional context. 

More information about our scoring system can be found in the How We Score States Guide.

The 2023 edition of RCV Maps has some major and minor updates from the 2021 edition of the project.

Major changes include:

• Addition of registered voter analysis
• Updated information on each voting system vendor’s RCV capability
• Incorporated more information about remote ballot marking systems, where available
• Updated ballot design examples
• Added real-world accessible RCV ballot design examples
• Simplified ballot design and post-election audit analysis
• Additional visualizations from RCV jurisdictions
• Improved RCV results reporting analysis
• Addition of voter education and recounts sections
• New assessment design

Minor changes include:

• Expanded sourcing for factual and legal information
• Updated example ballots
• Improved the organization and appearance of the voting system appendices