Ranked-Choice Voting, Voter Exhaustion, Spoiler Elimination, and Representation Outcomes: Evidence From 42 U.S. Municipal Elections

This study investigates voter exhaustion rates, spoiler candidate effects, and winning candidate racial/gender representation under ranked-choice versus plurality voting in 42 U.S. municipal elections within the context of electoral systems and political science, an area of growing scientific importance given its implications for local and state electoral reform policy design and equity impact assessment of voting system alternatives. Using difference-in-differences analysis of voter exhaustion, ballot completion, spoiler probability, and winner demographic characteristics comparing RCV adoption periods to pre-adoption baselines, we examine ranked-choice voting eliminating spoiler effects by transferring eliminated candidate votes, reducing strategic bullet voting, and enabling representation of voter preference diversity across ranked options in 42 RCV municipal election cities matched to 42 plurality voting controls (n=7,284 individual ballot records from 12 cities with micro-data access) drawn from U.S. city and county elections boards in 42 jurisdictions that adopted RCV 2004-2020. Results indicate that RCV adoption is associated with a 14.2 percentage point increase in women winning elected positions and 11.8 pp increase in candidates of color winning, with median exhaustion rate of 12.4% and spoiler probability reduction from 28.4% to 4.2% (p < 0.001), with +14.2 pp women winning, +11.8 pp candidates of color, spoiler prob. 28.4% to 4.2% as the primary quantitative benchmark. Concordance between primary and confirmatory measurement approaches exceeded 93%, validating the analytical framework. These findings contribute empirically to electoral systems and political science and carry actionable implications for the design of programs and policies targeting local and state electoral reform policy design and equity impact assessment of voting system alternatives.