There’s only two states in the U.S. with ranked choice voting, and a political activist from one has landed in Michigan to bring the convoluted voting method to the Great Lakes State.

Rank MI Vote last month officially launched its initiative to put statewide ranked choice voting on the ballot in 2026, with weekly training sessions now underway for volunteers.

Some of those sessions have been led by Doug Robbins, a retired Marathon Oil geologist from Alaska who moved with his wife to the Gull Lake area in 2023, according to the Michigan Fair Elections Institute.

An anonymous volunteer who attended a training session on Feb. 27 told the election integrity nonprofit Robbins insists “a lot of political operatives are going to need to be funded to get this passed.”

Robbins, who described himself of an early proponent of ranked choice voting in Alaska, has also put his money where his mouth is as the single largest donor to the Rank MI Vote Ballot Question Committee, with a $100,103.45 contribution in 2024.

Alaska, along with Maine, are the only two states that use ranked choice voting in statewide elections, though many others have considered the move. At least 13 states have banned ranked choice voting, while voters in four states rejected the approach through ballot proposals in 2024: Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.

In Alaska, an initiative to repeal ranked choice voting was narrowly defeated after supporters spent more than $12 million to preserve the practice, compared to a mere $120,000 spent by opponents, according to the Alaska Beacon.

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Ranked choice voting ultimately survived in Alaska by a paltry 743 votes after a recount initiated by the Alaska Republican Party.

In Michigan, the effort to shift to ranked choice voting is led by the same coalition of activists that spearheaded election law changes through constitutional amendments on the ballot in 2018 and 2022.

“So-called election ‘reformers’ have used state constitutional amendments twice – in 2018 with the passage of Proposals 2 and 3 and in … passage of Proposal 2 in 2022 – to bypass the state legislature’s federally mandated authority to determine election laws,” MFEI Chair Patrice Johnson said. “Now here they come with yet another constitutional amendment, this time to bring in ranked choice voting.”

Ranked choice voting allows voters to rank candidates based on preference, and if their first choice doesn’t win, their vote transfers to their next choice as the candidate with the least votes is eliminated.

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That cycle repeats until a single candidate accumulates more than 50% of the vote.

Proponents contend ranked choice voting reduces political polarization, boosts voter turnout and produces results more in line with what voters want.

Opponents note the process is more complicated and partisan, arguing it produces a result with less transparency that encourages fringe candidates.

In Michigan, both Mayor Mike Duggan, who ditched the Democratic Party to run for governor as an Independent, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a former hate crimes investigator and Democratic frontrunner for governor, have expressed support for ranked choice voting.

Proponents have spearheaded successful initiatives in East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Royal Oak, Ann Arbor and Ferndale to switch to rank choice voting, but those initiatives are currently blocked by the Michigan Constitution.

The aspiring 2026 ballot initiative is backed by the nonprofit Voters Not Politicians, which led a statewide ballot initiative in 2018 that created a Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission that has since wasted millions of tax dollars to create legislative maps courts have ruled unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

Voters Not Politicians also led a ballot initiative in 2022 that created loopholes in the state’s voter ID laws through misleading advertising that claimed it would mandate identification for voting.

The ballot proposals in 2018 and 2022 allowed same-day voter registrations without a valid proof of identity, a minimum of nine days and up to 29 days of early in-person voting, private funding for elections, and no-excuse absentee voting. The ballot proposals also changed in-person voting procedures, reduced the authority of county board of canvassers, and created an independent redistricting commission.

Both of the ballot initiatives met legal challenges from Michigan Republicans, most recently with a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court this month that requests a review of lower court decisions.

The federal lawsuit asserts the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause “mandates state legislatures to regulate federal elections,” and argues the ballot proposals circumvented that requirement to enshrine in the state constitution the most dramatic changes to Michigan’s election laws in four decades.

“This issue is whether individual legislators have standing to bring Election Clause enforcement claims against state executive branch officials when the state legislature itself does not sue,” attorney Erick Kaardal, who is representing lawmakers, said in a statement

.Plaintiffs note the Election Clause states “The times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” a point MFEI highlighted in a recent letter to the Michigan Board of State Canvassers warning of potential issues if the ranked choice voting initiative is approved for the 2026 ballot.

“It is imperative that the Board of State Canvassers take into account the legal and constitutional constraints surrounding ballot initiatives that affect elections, especially given ongoing litigation and federal constitutional requirements,” Johnson wrote.

“Any election law changes, particularly those affecting federal elections, must first be approved by the state legislature before being presented to voters via ballot initiatives,” she wrote. “To bypass this process would violate both the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions.”