From Data to Impact in Four Days

About Rank the Vote

Choosing between the lesser of two evils. Fear of “splitting the vote.” The constant stream of negative campaign messaging instead of coalition building. The feeling that no candidate truly represents you.

Murmuration’s partner, Rank the Vote, understands these dilemmas and offers a solution to change our electoral systems for the better. They’re building a movement to bring ranked choice voting—a system that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, ensuring winners have the broadest support—to communities across the country, giving voters more choice and more power in their elections.

The Challenge

In Boston, MA, Rank the Vote was supporting its Massachusetts state partner during a critical push for ranked choice voting ahead of a key city council hearing that could determine whether or not the new system would move forward. With just days to act, they knew they’d need to mobilize a groundswell of supporters eager to make their voices heard and demonstrate the strong community need for ranked choice voting. But, without insights into which community members to prioritize for outreach, and with a very short lead time, they risked low turnout, which could mean potentially missing a key opportunity to demonstrate the full scope of community demand for ranked choice voting in Boston.

The Solution

With just four days before the hearing, Rank the Vote used the predictive power of Murmuration’s Ranked Choice Voting Support model score to identify which community members were most likely to support ranked choice voting. Equipped with these insights, they quickly transformed that data into action—launching an outreach campaign, powered by Murmuration’s outreach and organizing platform, Organizer, to encourage the most likely supporters to contact their city councilors and attend the upcoming hearing.

The Result

In less than a week, leveraging Murmuration’s data to prioritize their outreach, Rank the Vote successfully achieved their goals:

• More than 1,600 emails were sent to the Boston City Council from community members identified through Murmuration’s model score
• Over 50 supporters attended the city council hearing in person, creating a surplus of energized community speakers
• Boston City Council was forced to take the community seriously and voted to advance a Home Rule Petition to potentially bring ranked choice voting to the city, which was ultimately signed by the Boston Mayor in a historic decision

Victories like this are often built over years of organizing, coalition-building, and convincing people that their voices matter. But success often hinges on the ability to quickly build support in critical moments, sometimes with little notice. In the case of Rank the Vote’s work in Boston, Murmuration’s model score played a key role in making this victory possible and making advancements in bringing ranked choice voting to Boston. As Rank the Vote’s Executive Director, Eileen Reavey, put it, “Murmuration enabled the ranked choice voting movement to reach more people and win more effectively than ever before with smart targeting. Murmuration's partnership with Rank the Vote's network of state and local organizations is taking these and other homegrown, grassroots democracy initiatives to a whole new level.”