Choosing to vote as usual

In the United States, there is a growing momentum towards ranked choice voting. In this study, we conducted two independent yet complementary surveys to examine which voting system citizens prefer, one with the real candidates in the states holding Super Tuesday Democratic primaries and one with fictitious candidates in the whole country. In both surveys, respondents were invited to vote using four different voting rules – single, approval, rank, and point (score) – and then asked how satisfied they were using each system. In both studies the single vote remains the most preferred voting method. We find that citizens’ views are strongly correlated with age, with the eldest being much more favorable to the single vote. Surprisingly, these views do not vary across education levels. Finally, those who have had personal experience with ranked ballot are more positive towards ranked voting, which suggests the presence of a status quo bias.