Photo by Kamran Abdullayev on Unsplash

Monday marked the kickoff of the 2025 legislative session in the Iowa General Assembly. However, several bills had already been prefilled for consideration. Among them: a ranked choice voting ban. 

The bill, filed by Secretary of State Paul Pate, prohibits the use of instant runoff voting or any form of ranked choice voting in state elections. This ban includes local governments, meaning cities and counties can't decide for themselves.

If signed into law, Iowa would be the 12th state to ban RCV. The 11 states with a ban in place include Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Tennessee.

Six of these states implemented RCV bans in 2024, 5 in state legislatures and the most recent, Missouri, via Amendment 7, which attached an RCV ban to a ban on noncitizens voting -- something that was already illegal.

The Missouri vote marked one of the rare instances in which voters have consented to a ban on election reform. In fact, voters are much more likely to reject bans or RCV repeals.

In Arizona, for example, voters elected not to reform their elections in 2024, but they also voted "No" on bans to primary and voting reform. Voters in Alaska and Bloomington, Minnesota, also rejected repeals to their RCV systems.