DETROIT — Supporters of ranked choice voting — a system that would overhaul how elections are won and lost in Michigan — are hoping to gather petition signatures in the coming months and put a proposal on the ballot to amend the state Constitution in November 2026.

Pat Zabawa, executive director of the group Rank MI Vote, told The Detroit News that his committee expects to have the Board of State Canvassers authorize the wording of its petition forms as soon as next month.

That approval would likely allow Rank MI Vote to begin gathering signatures and might intensify an already growing debate that's drawn the attention of Republican President Donald Trump about whether the voting process needs an overhaul in the battleground state of Michigan.

While Rank MI Vote hasn't released the specifics of its plan, generally under ranked choice voting, people have the ability to rank the candidates for a particular office and the ultimate winner has to get a majority of the support. If no candidate gets a majority of the first-choice votes, the initial last-place finisher would drop off and the second choices of the last-place finisher's backers would be recounted as first-place votes. The process would continue until someone got more than 50%.

“Increasingly, voters feel dissatisfied with the choices on their ballots and want more options," Zabawa said of the Rank MI Vote campaign.

Zabawa, 37, of Ann Arbor, who left his job in software development to volunteer full-time with Rank MI Vote, contended that ranked choice voting is a "simple solution" to deal with the growing problem of candidates winning races in Michigan with less than 50% of the vote.

Zabawa used the example of the August 2022 primary in which U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, first became the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 13th District. Thanedar won that primary contest with 28% of the vote against a crowded field of opponents, meaning 72% of those casting ballots supported someone else.

Thanedar, a former businessman, went on to win the general election and is now in his second term in the U.S. House.

"Because that spoiler problem is solved, additional candidates could come forward," Zabawa said of a ranked choice voting system.

Rank MI Vote will need 446,198 valid signatures to get a proposal to amend the state constitution on the ballot in November 2026. And the group will face opposition, including from the most powerful office in the country.

When Trump visited Michigan on April 29, he told a crowd in Macomb County, "You must never allow ranked choice voting to be here. Never."

How it would work

Trump has previously argued that ranked choice voting allowed candidates who were initially in third place or even fifth place to win elections. He has targeted many of his criticisms of the system at U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska who has publicly clashed with the president.

"She knew she couldn't win a straight-up election," Trump said of Murkowski in 2022. "So she went for crazy ranked choice."

Alaska is one of two states that have ranked choice voting in at least some of their statewide elections. The other is Maine.

In Alaska's system, the top four recipients of votes in the primary advance to the general election, where ranked choice is used. In 2022, Murkowski was in first place after the first round of voting at 43.4% over Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, who had 42.6%.

After the bottom two candidates were knocked off, Murkowski won the Senate race by a wider margin: 53.7%-46.3%.

In March, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a bill to ban ranked choice voting in his state, even though it has never been practiced there.

"Ranked choice voting is a complicated process that reduces confidence in election outcomes," said Kris Warner, West Virginia's secretary of state. “It can theoretically result in an initially third- or fourth-favorite candidate being elected.”

Zabawa declined to say exactly how the ranked choice system would work in Michigan's primary and general elections under the coming petition language. He said the language is still being finalized. Asked which races the proposal would impact, Zabawa said the aim is to affect "as many races as possible."

At the local level in Michigan, voters have approved ranked choice voting in five municipalities already, but the system hasn't been used in the municipalities' races because the Michigan Bureau of Elections says it can't yet be done, Zabawa said.

An amendment to the Michigan Constitution would change that fact.

In 2023, three municipalities approved ranked choice voting: East Lansing, Kalamazoo and Royal Oak. Royal Oak supported the proposal 51%-49%. The three communities are Democratic strongholds.

"While these cities still need authorization from the state to implement RCV, the ballot measures amend each city’s charter such that RCV will be used as soon as authorization is granted," according to the election reform organization Fair Vote.

But the task of getting on the ballot statewide is more daunting. Rank MI Vote plans to collect more than 600,000 petition signatures — giving the campaign a margin well above the legal threshold — and to do it with volunteers, Zabawa said.

Most successful petition campaigns in recent years in Michigan have relied on paid signature gatherers. But Zabawa said Rank MI Vote believes its volunteer infrastructure is strong enough to move forward. The group has been holding and participating in events across the state to gather support.

“That’s why we feel comfortable that we can launch it in June," Zabawa said.

Rank MI Vote is currently selling campaign mugs that say, "Make elections kind again with ranked choice voting." Its website says ranked choice will promote "positivity."

"Candidates need to earn the second and third choice votes of their opponent’s supporters by appealing to what they have in common," the Rank MI Vote website says.

The fight ahead

In 2018, Voters Not Politicians, a volunteer-driven campaign to overhaul Michigan's legislative redistricting process, gathered about 394,000 signatures to get its proposal on the statewide ballot, where voters later approved it.

The required signature threshold is about 50,000 higher for Rank MI Vote, and a spokeswoman for Voters Not Politicians said VNP doesn't plan to help with the ranked choice effort.

Voters Not Politicians is currently focused "on other policy priorities, most pressingly combating the voter suppression initiatives," said Melinda Billingsley, communications manager for the organization.

Adrian Hemond, CEO of the Lansing-based political consulting firm Grassroots Midwest, said he's "very skeptical" that Rank MI Vote can gather the nearly 450,000 required signatures through volunteers. Ranked choice voting is hard to explain to potential supporters, and it could lead to first-place vote recipients not winning, Hemond said.

"That’s a tough sell for a lot of people," Hemond said.

However, state Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, is among the supporters of ranked choice voting in Michigan. She said the system would allow for additional political parties to have real chances to win elections in Michigan, where Democrats and Republicans have dominated for decades.

"I think that ranked choice voting gives voters the chance to vote for candidates that most align with themselves and not have to think about which candidate is more electable in a general election," Rheingans added.

Rheingans said Rank MI Vote will have to raise some money to be successful in getting the proposal on the ballot and approved next fall.

In December, the campaign received its largest contribution yet, $100,000 from Doug Robbins of Hickory Corners, according to campaign finance records.

State Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, and other Michigan Republicans have already voiced opposition to ranked choice voting.

"Instead of voting for a winning candidate, rigged choice allows losers and leftists to win," Maddock said. "I believe one man, one vote, not one leftist gets 10 votes."

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