RANK CHOICE VOTING

WHAT IS RANK CHOICE VOTING

A Ranked-Choice Voting system (RCV) is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. There are multiple forms of ranked-choice voting. This page focuses on the most commonly used form of RCV for single-winner elections, also known as instant runoff voting (IRV), and provides some supplemental information on other forms of this electoral system.

In instant-runoff voting, if a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, they are the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. Ballots that ranked a failed candidate as their first, or highest choice, depending on the round, are then reevaluated and counted as first-preference ballots for the next-highest-ranked candidate in that round. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority of ballots. The process is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority. Elements of this process, such as the number of candidates eliminated in each round, may vary by jurisdiction.

As of January 2026, seven states had laws authorizing or requiring the use of Rank Choice Voting for certain elections, while 18 states had laws prohibiting or restricting the use of Rank Choice Voting.

How ranked-choice voting works

Broadly speaking, the ranked-choice voting process unfolds as follows for single-winner elections:

1. Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots.

2. If a candidate wins an outright majority of first-preference votes (i.e., 50 percent plus one), he or she will be declared the winner.

3. If, on the other hand, no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated.

4. All first-preference votes for the failed candidate are eliminated, and second-preference choices on these ballots are then counted as first-preference.

5. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority of the ballots.

6. The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast.

Example 

The Sample Ballot

Assume that there are six candidates for mayor in a hypothetical city. 

Rank Your Vote

Candidate	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
Candidate A	O	O	O	O	O	O
Candidate B	O	O	O	O	O	O
Candidate C	O	O	O	O	O	O
Candidate D	O	O	O	O	O	O
Candidate E	O	O	O	O	O	O
Candidate F	O	O	O	O	O	O
Not Selected	O	O	O	O	O	O

Rank up to six candidates. Mark no more than one oval in each column.

The table below presents the raw first preference vote totals for each candidate (Round 1)

Rank Choice Voting Election Results

Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 Round 6

Vote % Vote % Vote % Vote % Vote %

Candidate A 8423 31.3 8816 33.3 9423 35.9 10294 39.8 12311 48.7

Candidate B 6162 22.9 6651 25.0 8449 32.2 10253 39.6 12984 51.3

Candidate C 4655 17.3 4705 17.7 4802 18.3 5321 20.6 Eliminated

Candidate D 3418 12.7 3525 13.2 3593 13.2 Eliminated Eliminated

Candidate E 2852 10.6 2916 11.0 Eliminated Eliminated Eliminated

Candidate F 1399 5.2 Eliminated Eliminated Eliminated Eliminated

Inactive 0 Ballots 297 Ballots 643 Ballots 1042 Ballots 1615 Ballots

No candidate won an outright majority of first-preference votes. As a result, the candidate (Candidate F) with the smallest number of first-preference votes is eliminated. Any ballot that ranked Candidate F as first-preference is then re-counted, and second-preference choices on those ballots are counted as first-preference in the subsequent round of tallying.

Assume that, of the 1,399 first-preference votes for Candidate F, 393 listed Candidate A as their second preference, 489 listed Candidate B, and so on. Of these first-preference votes for Candidate F, 297 did not list a second preference. On the second tally, no candidate secured a simple majority of votes. The rounds continue until a candidate has received a majority. In Round 6, Candidate B received a simple majority of the remaining votes.

Alaska and Maine use Rank Choice Voting for statewide and federal elections. The New York City has used Rank Choice Voting for most city elections since 2021. 

The method is also called Alternative Voting, ranked voting, and instant runoff. In other words, instead of having to hold a full runoff election on another date between the top two candidates who did not win a majority in the primary, as many cities and states mandate, Rank Choice Voting allows for an “instant runoff” by reassigning the existing votes in ranked order. Although Rank Choice Voting is used infrequently in the United States, it should be used more often, especially at the national level!

Pros

Pro 1:

Ranked-choice voting is often a less expensive form of voting and one that ensures that winners have some level of support from the majority of voters.

In many state elections, if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, a second runoff election is held between the top two candidates from the first round. Ranked-choice voting eliminates the need for this second round of campaigning and voting—voters only vote once, saving the cost of another round of voting and tabulations. Moreover, though the winning candidate in a ranked-choice election may not have been the majority’s first choice, the winning candidate will have been a ranked choice (second or maybe third) of the majority.

Fair Vote says: Each vote is precious and should count to the full extent possible. Rank Choice Voting yields election outcomes that better represent voter preferences. Winners elected with Rank Choice Voting have majority support and truly represent their communities—meaning a stronger mandate to govern, or stronger nominees in primary elections.

Pro 2:

Ranked-Choice Voting increases voters voice and choice, offering a more diverse pool of candidates.

With ranked-choice voting, if a voter’s first choice doesn’t win, that person’s vote is assigned to his or her second choice automatically. This allows voters to have more input than a one-and-done system.

As Eveline Dowling and Caroline Tolbert wrote for the American Bar Association: Candidates who had hesitated to enter a race for fear of being a spoiler may be more willing to enter an Ranked-Choice Voting race.…In plurality voting, voters of a particular ideological persuasion may stick with a disliked candidate because if only some of them shift to a replacement on their side, they could end up allowing the other side’s candidate to win. In Rank Choice Voting (where vote-splitting is less of a concern) they are freer to shift to a better alternative.

Ranked-choice voting can even encourage more candidates to run, especially minorities, offering the public a more diverse pool of candidates. “Rank Choice Voting makes it easier for women and candidates of color to run for office and win”. “With Rank Choice Voting, candidates aren’t pressured to wait their turn, nor are they perceived as ‘spoilers.’ Research finds that candidates of color are more likely to win Rank Choice Voting elections, particularly in races featuring multiple candidates of color.”

Pro 3:

Ranked-choice voting decreases negative campaigning, encourages candidates to campaign beyond their base, and increases voter turnout. In a ranked-choice election, if a candidate runs a negative campaign about an opponent, the candidate risks alienating voters who favor the opponent and thus losing a second- or third-ranked vote. Furthermore, candidates are more likely to engage in voter outreach, beyond their traditional base of support, in order to obtain a majority in a second-ranked vote, and this additional engagement increases voter turnout. Rebecca Noecker, a member of the City Council in Saint Paul, Minnesota, explained that while running for office, she “door knocked a number of people who had signs up for [her] opponent.…The conversation didn’t have to stop because they had already pledged to someone else.” A candidate may not have won that voter on the first round of voting but could still win that vote in the second or third round of voting. Rank Choice Voting forces candidates to abandon negative campaign tactics because candidates not only need the first-choice support of their supporters, but also the second and third choice support from voters who prefer other candidates. A study has shown that jurisdictions with Rank Choice Voting have experienced friendlier campaigns and majority support in the cities using it.

Voter engagement and political dialogue are multiplied in ranked-choice voting, and that’s good for democracy.

Cons

Con 1:

Ranked-choice voting can eliminate the candidate with the most first-place votes, favor moderate candidates with only marginal support, and encourage scheming to get around these limitations.

The winner in a ranked-choice election is the person who has received a majority of all votes in the final round. If the election process goes through several rounds, the candidate with the majority of votes in the first round may be eliminated. Much of the time ranked-choice, voting isn’t getting any kind of majority at all. Rather, it’s contriving a majority by artificially narrowing down the candidate field. Rank Choice Voting knocks out candidates over each round, but sometimes it knocks out good candidates by mistake.

Furthermore, candidates or voters may engage in schemes to tilt favor to one candidate or another, something that’s not at all far-fetched in the age of social media. For example, Hans von Spakovsky and J. Adams of the Heritage Foundation speculated: If enough Ross Perot voters [1992 U.S. presidential election] had listed George H. W. Bush as their second choice over Bill Clinton in 1992, Bush might have won that presidential election instead of Clinton. Since Perot came in third in the race, his votes with Bush as the second choice would have counted for Bush in the second round of vote tabulation. Rank Choice Voting provides “voters with an incentive to tactically game the system and falsify their preferences for candidates,” so their “real” choice survives to the next round and can win in the end.

Con 2: 

Ranked-choice voting disenfranchises voters, limiting their choices and “exhausting” their ballots. Although voters are able, and perhaps encouraged, to rank all candidates on their ballots, they do not always do so. Some voters may only support one or two candidates and find ranking candidates with whom they disagree strongly distasteful or even immoral. When the candidates on a voter’s ballot have been eliminated by the ranked-choice process, that ballot is “exhausted,” and that voter is effectively disenfranchised. Any voting system that tosses out votes and voters, or that reassigns a voter’s vote to a candidate the voter objects to for the creation of a fake majority, is wholly undemocratic.

Con 3:

Ranked-choice voting complicates voting, delays results, and is more vulnerable to corruption.

Ranked voting delays results. If no candidate wins a majority, the subsequent rounds of tabulation have to wait until all valid ballots have been counted. In Alaska, which uses ranked-choice voting for all elections, the second and later rounds of counting cannot even begin until 15 days after the election because the state continues to count absentee ballots. Finally, whenever additional rounds of tabulation are added to an election, the risk of election fraud is compounded, especially if the election is a national one. “Under a national popular vote, Rank Choice Voting faces enormous technical hurdles,” writes the Center for Election Science. “The nature of Rank Choice Voting tabulation requires that all the ballot data be centralized for tabulation. This creates both security and logistical concerns.…You’d [also] have to deal with holdout states still using our choose-one [candidate] method.…you can’t add Rank Choice Voting and regular choose-one ballots together. It just doesn’t work.” 

Under Article 1 Section 4 of the United States Constitution is determined

Section 4:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Election for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof: but Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The House of Representatives and the Senate may determine on its own for Federal offices to require Rank Choice Voting for all Federal Election overriding state laws that do not allow rank choice voting or restrict its use to certain elections only.