How Ranked Choice Voting Actually Works

Short version: Ranked choice voting lets you rank candidates in order of preference instead of picking just one. If nobody wins a majority of first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their voters' ballots transfer to those voters' next choice. The counting repeats, round by round, until someone has a majority. It is designed to elect the candidate the most voters can live with, not just the one with the biggest angry plurality.

The one-sentence definition

Ranked choice voting (RCV), also called instant-runoff voting, is a system where voters rank candidates 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, and the winner is decided through rounds of counting that eliminate the lowest candidate and transfer their votes until one candidate has a majority.

How the count works, round by round

1. Count everyone's first choices. If a candidate has more than 50%, they win. Done.
2. If nobody has a majority, eliminate the candidate in last place.
3. Transfer that candidate's ballots to whoever each of those voters ranked next.
4. Recount. Check again for a majority.
5. Repeat until one candidate crosses 50%.

A ballot only ever counts for one candidate at a time, your highest-ranked choice who is still in the race. Your second choice never hurts your first choice; it only matters if your first choice is already out.

A quick example

Nobody has a majority, so D is eliminated. D's 9 voters ranked someone else second, say 6 go to C and 3 to B. New totals: A 40, C 26, B 34. Still no majority, so C is eliminated and those ballots transfer to their next choice. If most prefer B, B crosses 50 and wins, even though A led the first round. That last part is the thing people argue about, and it is the whole strategic point.

Why it changes how campaigns are run

Under a normal "pick one" election, you win by turning out your base and tearing down the front-runner. Under RCV, you also have to be a lot of voters' second choice, because those transfers decide close races. That does three things campaigns notice immediately:

• It punishes going scorched-earth. If you savage a rival, you also lose that rival's voters as potential second-choice transfers. In real RCV races, candidates have literally cross-endorsed, telling their supporters to rank an opponent second.
• It rewards coalition-building over pure base-turnout. The candidate who is broadly acceptable can beat the candidate intensely loved by a narrow slice.
• It introduces the "center squeeze." A moderate can be lots of people's second choice but few people's first, get eliminated early for lack of first-place votes, and never make the final round, even though they might have beaten either finalist head-to-head.

Where people get confused

Does my second choice hurt my first? No. Your ballot stays with your first choice for as long as they are in the race. Ranking a backup can never move a vote away from your top pick.

Is this the same as the top-four or top-five primary? Related but not identical. Several states pair an all-candidate primary (top four or five advance) with an RCV general. The RCV part is the ranked count above; the "top-four" part is just how the finalists are chosen.

Do I have to rank everyone? No. You can rank one, some, or all. If everyone you ranked is eliminated, your ballot is "exhausted" and stops counting, which is one of the real critiques of RCV.

Where RCV stands right now

RCV is at a genuine inflection point. Two states, Maine and Alaska, use it statewide, dozens of cities use it for local elections, and it is on ballots again this cycle. That includes a high-profile repeal fight in Alaska, where a 2024 attempt to repeal it failed by about a quarter of a percentage point, alongside adoption measures in cities like Honolulu and Irvine. Whichever way those votes go, the debate over whether ranking candidates makes elections better is not settling any time soon.

Reading about the center squeeze is one thing. Watching your comfortable first-round lead evaporate in the transfers, because you were nobody's second choice, is another.

It is part of Campaign Margins, a suite of free political strategy games you play solo, in a classroom, or head to head. If you teach, RCV is one of the clearest, most game-able concepts in a civics unit.