Potential Cost Savings from Ranked Choice Voting in Waltham

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) has increasingly been adopted by American cities seeking to improve election efficiency, reduce administrative burdens, and avoid the cost of separate runoff elections. The cost benefit is in addition to the positive RCV gains of eliminating the spoiler effect, ensuring majority winners, and fostering more civil campaigns.

For a city like Waltham, adopting RCV for local elections could generate meaningful long-term savings while modernizing municipal election administration and improving the overall voter and candidate experience.

Research from election administration organizations and municipal case studies indicates that the largest financial savings from RCV generally come from eliminating separate runoff elections, reducing the need for preliminary elections, consolidating election administration into a single voting event, and lowering staffing, printing, mailing, and operational costs associated with multiple election rounds.

Background

Waltham conducts municipal elections for mayor, city council, and school committee using a plurality voting system. In crowded races, candidates can win with substantially less than majority support. Ranked Choice Voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference and simulates an instant runoff using a single ballot.

How Ranked Choice Voting Can Reduce Costs

The clearest and most measurable savings from RCV come from avoiding separate runoff elections. Traditional runoff systems require reopening polling places, rehiring election workers, printing and mailing additional ballots, and conducting another round of election administration.

RCV consolidates these activities into one election cycle. Waltham can reduce overtime expenses, temporary staffing costs, ballot logistics costs, and administrative duplication. The expenses associated with run off elections can be grouped into the following categories. 

Administration & Logistics

• Printing new ballots

• Renting and staffing polling locations a second time

• Paying poll workers for an additional election day

• Programming and testing voting machines again

• Absentee/mail ballot printing and postage

Candidate Expenses

• Additional campaign advertising

• Mailers and door hangers

• Staffing and field organizing for a second cycle

• Fundraising costs to finance the extended campaign

Government Staff Time

• Election officials' overtime and extended work hours

• Legal review and compliance

• IT/technical support for an additional election cycle

Ancillary Costs

• Lower voter turnout in runoffs typically means the cost-per-vote cast is significantly higher than the original election

• Security personnel for polling locations

• Provisional ballot processing

Although RCV ballots may be slightly larger because they contain ranking columns, municipalities generally report that these costs are far lower than running an entirely separate election.

Estimated Financial Impact for Waltham

Potential one-time implementation costs could include software upgrades ($12,000), ballot redesign ($2-3,000), poll worker training $3,000), and voter education ($25-37,500) . These costs could range from approximately $42,000 to $55,500 depending on equipment compatibility and outreach efforts. Groups like Ranked Choice Waltham are already helping with this outreach.

In summary, the potential recurring savings include avoided runoff or preliminary elections, reduced staffing and overtime, consolidated printing and mailing costs, and lower facility operations costs. Estimated recurring savings could range from roughly $70,000 to $325,000 per election cycle.

Potential Challenges

RCV implementation requires voter education, ballot redesign, and election worker training. Typically, the city’s voting systems would require software updates or certification procedures. It is possible, though unlikely, that the final tabulation could take slightly longer because ballots are processed in rounds.

However, many municipalities report that these challenges diminish significantly after the first election cycle.

Conclusion

For a city like Waltham, Ranked Choice Voting presents a credible opportunity to reduce long-term election administration costs while improving electoral efficiency. The strongest financial argument for RCV is its ability to produce majority-supported outcomes without requiring separate runoff elections.

Beyond cost savings, Ranked Choice Voting offers several additional civic benefits that have contributed to its growing adoption across the United States:

• Encourages more positive campaigning by incentivizing candidates to seek second- and third-choice support from a broader range of voters.

• Reduces the “spoiler effect,” allowing voters to support preferred candidates without fear of unintentionally helping elect their least favored option.

• Produces winners with broader voter support and stronger democratic legitimacy.

• Improves voter choice by making it easier for multiple candidates to run without splitting the vote.

• In some jurisdictions, RCV has been associated with more diverse candidate fields and improved representation.

• Reduces voter fatigue by eliminating the need for separate runoff elections with historically low turnout.

• Encourages coalition-building and more consensus-oriented political campaigns.

For Waltham, the case for RCV is not solely about immediate dollar savings. It is also about creating a more efficient, representative, and future-ready election system capable of supporting competitive local democracy while reducing administrative duplication and increasing voter engagement.

Selected References

• MIT Election Lab – Cost of Ranked Choice Voting
  https://electionlab.mit.edu/articles/cost-ranked-choice-voting 

• Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center – Election Planning
  https://www.rcvresources.org/election-planning 

• FairVote – Ranked Choice Voting Information
  https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-information/ 

• Bipartisan Policy Center – Election Administration and RCV
  https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/reform-meets-reality-how-ranked-choice-voting-impacts-election-administration/ 

• New America Foundation – Administration of Ranked Choice Voting
  https://www.newamerica.org/insights/what-we-know-about-ranked-choice-voting/