The ballot measure has played a role in shaping electoral systems in the U.S., including ranked-choice voting (RCV) for state and local elections.
Since 1914, when voters in Los Angeles, California, rejected Amendment 8 to adopt a multi-winner ranked-choice voting system, there have been more than 150 ballot measures to adopt or repeal ranked-choice voting systems at state and local elections. The first measure that voters approved was in Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1915.
RCV is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates on their ballots. RCV can be used for single-winner elections or multi-winner elections; when used for multi-winner elections, the system has also been called single-transferable vote or proportional representation. These terms were often used to describe multi-winner RCV before 1970.
