Ranked choice voting

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

For elections in which a single person must be elected for a position, such as a president, governor, or attorney general, the intent should be to elect the person who has the most popular support.

A simple tally of votes and selecting the person with the most votes doesn’t always end up with the person with the most popular support elected. This is because while more people prefer candidate “A” as their first choice than candidates “B” or “C”, when the candidate with the least votes is removed from consideration, it’s possible that more people actually prefer candidate “B” as either their first or second choice than candidate “A”, which means candidate “B” has more popular support and should be the one elected to the position.

This goal of finding the candidate with the most popular support is the difference between a simple tally and ranked-choice voting. People who prefer simple tallies might say that ranked-choice voting is complicated, causes people to be disenfranchised, or is somehow more prone to fraud than simple tallies. People who prefer ranked-choice voting might say that simple tallies don’t always elect the candidate with the most popular support, and that it helps the dysfunctional two-party system stay entrenched by arguing to voters that throwing their vote away if they vote for any third party candidate and that by doing so they’re “taking votes away” from the party’s candidate.

This proposal for ranked-choice voting is an effective and easy-to-use way to ensure elected candidates have the support of a majority of voters. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to express their strong interest in any candidate while ensuring that their vote still counts if their preferred candidate does not win.

Ranked-choice voting can be used for single-seat elections, such as governor or mayor, and also multi-seat elections, such as electing a number of people to the city council or legislature. The procedure is essentially the same for these, so we describe single-seat elections first and then multi-seat elections.

Single-seat elections with multiple rounds

The essential steps of ranked-choice voting are:

Step 1. All the candidates eligible for the election are listed on the ballot.

Step 2. Each voter selects their preferred candidate for the position. This is the principle of “one voter, one vote”.

Step 3. All the ballots are counted and the results are published as the list of candidates and the number of votes each one received along with the percentage of voters represented.

Step 4. If any candidate won a majority of votes (50% rounded to the nearest integer plus 1), that candidate wins the election. If no candidate won a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is removed from the ballot and the election is repeated going back to Step 1.

This process can take multiple weeks with an election conducted each week until a winner is selected, depending on the number of candidates. For example, if there are 6 candidates for mayor and none of them gets a majority on the first election, the candidate with least votes is dropped and there are 5 candidates for mayor in week 2. If again no candidate has a majority, the candidate with least votes is dropped and there are 4 candidates for mayor in week 3. There could be 3 candidates in week 4, and two candidates in week 5.

In each election, a winning candidate has to win the majority of votes of people who voted in that election. It’s possible that different numbers of people vote in each weekly election — it could increase or decrease. The number of people voting could increase if the race becomes heated and people who didn’t care to vote earlier decide they need to express their choice. The number of people voting could decrease if people who really wanted their first choice candidate to win saw that candidate get the least votes and drop out, and are uninterested in participating in the election of the remaining candidates. These are just examples. In each round, the percentages are computed against the number of people who voted in that round.

Single-seat elections with two rounds

In this variant, there is a maximum of two rounds. If no candidate got a majority of votes in the first round, only the top two candidates with the highest tallies are eligible for the second round and the remaining candidates are dropped.

In the second round, the candidate with the majority of votes wins the election.

This variant has an advantage over the multi-round variant in that the election results will be known either the first week or the second week, regardless of the number of candidates participating the first week.

Single-seat elections with one round

The multiple rounds and two rounds methods are effective and easy to understand, but it can take longer to find the winner. The one round method ensures that a candidate with majority support is found in a single round.

Instead of selecting just one preferred candidate in each round, voters rank the candidates in their order of preference.

The tabulation procedure is similar to the multiple rounds method, but takes place immediately instead of asking people to show up the following week and vote in another round:

The essential steps of single-round ranked-choice voting are:

Step 1. All the candidates eligible for the election are listed on the ballot.

Step 2. Each voter selects their preferred candidate for the position. Then, voters must consider if their preferred candidate doesn’t win, who they would want instead, and select their second-choice candidate. Voters proceed to rank all the candidates in order. This is the principle of “one voter, one vote” the same as multiple-round ranked-choice voting, but condensed into a single ballot instead of occurring over multiple weeks. The ballot must clearly state that selecting a candidate for multiple ranks doesn’t help them win because each voter’s vote is only counted once per round. The ballot must clearly state that not selecting a candidate for each rank could result in the voter’s vote not being counted, which is the same as the voter not showing up for subsequent rounds in the multi-round method.

Step 3. All the ballots are counted and the results are published as the list of candidates and the number of votes each one received along with the percentage of voters represented.

Step 4. If any candidate won a majority of votes (50% rounded to the nearest integer plus 1), that candidate wins the election. If no candidate won a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is removed from the ballot by striking their name from the ballots that were cast for them, so that in the next round the next choice of each ballot will be counted. The process then returns to step 3.

The paper version of single-round ranked-choice voting can be confusing to voters. However, in districts that use voting machines the process can be very easy. The ballot machine displays the list of candidates on the left side and asks the user to select their preferred candidate. The computer then re-arranges the candidates on the left side to show the preferred candidate first with a number one next to their name, and the remaining candidates below. The machine then prompts the voter to consider who they would vote for if their preferred candidate ends up with the lowest number of votes and doesn’t move on to the next round. The voter then selects their second choice. The machine displays the second choice below the first choice, with a number two next to their name, and the remaining candidates below. The machine then repeats the prompt for the third choice, and continues until the voter has ranked all the candidates. This process with the machine is easy to understand, prevent voters from submitting invalid ballots with the same candidate selected for multiple ranks, and still allows voters to not rank candidates beyond a certain point if they don’t care to do that, with a prominent warning about their vote not being counted if their preferred candidates to don’t make it to the top two.

Multi-seat elections with multiple rounds

In multi-seat elections with multiple rounds, the same process is used as for single-seat elections with multiple rounds, and the entire process is repeated for each seat. The first seat winner is the first to win a majority of votes in a single-seat election with multiple rounds. That winner’s name is then removed from subsequent ballots and voters choose a second seat winner among the remaining candidates in multiple rounds. This continues until all seats have been filled or there are no more candidates.

This process can take months to select all the winners if a round happens every week, but can be condensed into a shorter time-frame by conducting as many rounds as there are seats, and in each round doing a single-seat election in a single round. The winner’s name is then removed from the list of candidates for the second seat and the election continues in the next round with the remaining candidates.

Multi-seat elections with a single round

The multi-seat elections can also be condensed to a single round by asking voters to rank candidates only once, and reprocessing their ballot for each seat with the past winners removed from their list for subsequent rounds.

The procedure follows:

Step 1. All the candidates eligible for the election are listed on the ballot, along with the number of seats.

Step 2. Each voter selects their preferred candidates, in order of preference. A candidate can be listed only once.

Starting with the first seat and proceeding to the last seat:

Step 3. For the current seat, all the ballots are counted and the results are published as the list of candidates and the number of votes each one received along with the percentage of voters represented.

Step 4. If any candidate won a majority of votes (50% rounded to the nearest integer plus 1), that candidate wins the election for the current seat and is removed from the ballot for subsequent seats going back to Step 3. If no candidate won a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is removed from the ballot and the counting is repeated going back to Step 4.

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