A slight majority of Philly Democratic voters want ranked-choice voting. What would it mean for the mayor’s race?

In a Philadelphia mayor’s race with five strong contenders headed into the last two weeks before the Democratic primary, and a lot of undecided voters, ranked-choice voting has become a hot topic.

It can work in different ways, but the premise is that voters rank candidates instead of selecting just one, typically resulting in an immediate recalculation that eliminates lower-performing candidates until there is a majority winner.

Fifty-three percent of likely Democratic primary voters support bringing ranked-choice voting to Philadelphia, according to a poll released Friday by the Committee of Seventy and SurveyUSA. But only 46% of respondents said they’d ever heard of ranked-choice voting before the survey — evidence that it’s still a pretty niche topic.

Proponents say it’s a way to elect candidates with more consensus support than in a traditional winner-take-all election. But it’s not a system that’s coming to the city any time soon, as it would require buy-in from both City Council and the state legislature.

Philadelphia’s May 16 Democratic primary will likely select the city’s next mayor, given Democrats’ registration edge. And the person with the most votes will win, no matter how slim the margin of victory. In this year’s nine-candidate Democratic primary, that means the Democratic nominee could earn just a small percentage of the primary vote.

“There’s a pretty good chance that whoever ends up winning will win with like 30% of the vote,” said Armin Samii, a volunteer with March on Harrisburg, which is pushing to bring ranked-choice voting to municipalities across the state. “And it’s just hard to get behind a candidate when you know they didn’t win a majority. I think no matter who wins, there’s gonna be pushback because of that.”

Proponents such as Samii argue that ranked-choice voting allows people to vote with their hearts instead of their heads.

“It’s just not a good voter experience. You can’t say, ’Which of these candidates do I like best?’” Samii said. “You have to follow it up with, ’Who actually has a chance of winning?’ And you end up picking maybe your second or third favorite.”

Critics of ranked-choice voting say it can be confusing for voters and cumbersome for election officials to administer, and that it over-benefits the most informed voters. It could also disenfranchise voters because ballots that do not include the two ultimate finalists are often cast aside, creating a faux majority for the winner. The system has led to some controversial outcomes: Republicans fumed over Alaska’s use of ranked-choice voting after Democrat Mary Pelota defeated Republican Sarah Palin in a special congressional election last year. She then won a full term in November, again with ranked-choice voting.

Bringing the practice to Philadelphia would require state and local buy-in. March on Harrisburg is drafting a bill that would allow municipalities to opt in to ranked-choice voting. Municipalities could also pick which races use a ranked system.

Currently, only two states, Alaska and Maine, have ranked-choice voting for all congressional and statewide elections. Some big cities, most notably New York and San Francisco, use the system for local elections.

According to the Committee of Seventy Poll and internal candidate polling, the race is evenly split between five candidates: Rebecca Rhynhart, Cherelle Parker, Helen Gym, Allan Domb, and Jeff Brown. Some of the candidates are appealing to the same groups of voters. Rhynhart and Gym are both vying for liberal Center City voters, for example, while Domb and Brown have both pitched a business-friendly agenda to moderate voters — particularly in the Northeast.

While ranked-choice voting could theoretically help candidates in danger of splitting support, it’s hard to pinpoint who would benefit the most or how the system would affect the outcome.

In the Committee of Seventy poll of likely voters conducted April 21-25, about 20% said they were undecided. The survey also asked respondents to rank their choices and then eliminated the lowest vote-getters round by round. In the ranked-choice exercise, Rhynhart and Parker wound up with the most votes, and Rhynhart eventually came out on top.

(One of Seventy’s partners on the poll is FairVote, a nonpartisan organization pushing to advance ranked-choice voting.)

The poll had a credibility interval, which is similar to a margin of error, of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Nearly all the candidates in this year’s mayoral race have said they’d support bringing ranked-choice voting to Philadelphia.

Political consultant Mustafa Rashed said it makes sense that while a candidate like Rhynhart could benefit from ranked voting, it’s all theoretical. The candidates he said the system would likely have helped the most have already left the race: former Councilmembers Maria Quiñones Sánchez and Derek Green.

“People vote for who they think will win, not who could win if people could vote for them without fear of throwing their vote away.”