The Honolulu Charter Commission has placed 20 Charter amendments on the ballot. Arguably the most consequential and concerning is Question 5, which would implement ranked-choice voting (RCV) in mayoral, City Council and prosecuting attorney elections. Other controversial amendments would create a new “LGBTQIA+ Commission,” and block local police from cooperating with federal immigration officials.
I was born and raised in Kaneohe and have spent most of my adult life living in Honolulu. I know our issues with homelessness, affordability and crime, and I don’t believe changing the way we elect our leaders will help solve any of them. RCV isn’t new; it’s been used in a few other cities and states around the country for years. Seeing its repeated failures has convinced me that implementing it in Honolulu elections would make a bad situation worse.
Pro-RCV advocates make it sound like their system has magical powers that increase voter turnout, create majority winners, moderate politics and save money. But it has a long history of doing the opposite.
Alaska adopted RCV in 2020. Increased voter turnout was one of the measure’s selling points, but that promise never materialized. Voter turnout in the state has actually decreased since RCV was implemented in 2022. Voter turnout during its 2022 midterm election was lower than in 2018 and 2014. Turnout also declined during the 2024 presidential election compared to 2020. Alaskans are so frustrated with the system that a second repeal measure in two years is on the November ballot. The first repeal measure failed by just 743 votes in 2024.
Creating majority winners is another claim. So, does RCV guarantee a majority winner? Not really. The RCV process “creates” majority winners by eliminating voters’ ballots and reallocating votes. When voters fail to rank multiple candidates, and the candidates they did rank are eliminated, their ballots are thrown out. That process is called “ballot exhaustion.” When New York City first used RCV during the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, more than 140,000 voters were disenfranchised by ballot exhaustion.
The city of Oakland, Calif., is a great example of the damage RCV does at the local level. Since adopting it in 2010, extreme candidates have eked out wins over moderates. In 2022, former Mayor Sheng Thao beat moderate Loren Taylor in the 9th round of RCV tabulation after receiving the most second-place votes. She was recalled by voters in 2024 for alleged corruption and for overseeing a rise in violent crime.
The claim that RCV saves money has been pushed by lobbyists for years. Since runoffs can be expensive, an instant runoff should save money, right? The truth is that New York City spent $15 million on its RCV voter education campaign, and San Francisco, a city that adopted RCV in 2002, spent $100,000 on its last voter education campaign in 2024. What should be a one-time investment to teach voters how to use the system turns into a recurring cost. On top of the price of educating voters, expensive voting machine upgrades can be required to run the system. And the Honolulu measure still allows for a primary election if there are more than five candidates, eliminating any possible savings at all.
Honolulu is an amazing city and is home to some of the kindest, most community-oriented people you will ever meet. But the city I love is facing serious issues that diminish the quality of life for all of us. Adopting a complicated voting system with a history of confusing and disenfranchising voters would be disastrous. That’s why I’m voting no on Question 5, and I suggest my fellow Honolulu voters do the same.
Jamie Detwiler is a licensed social worker and president of Hawaiian Islands Republican Women.
