All About Ranked Choice Voting

A mock ranked choice ballot asking the voter to rank the "best cookies." Options include chocolate, chocolate chip, and peanut butter. The above text reads, "Ballot: voters securely rank their preferences."

An infographic explaining how ranked choice contests are tabulated is shown. Voters' first choices are counted. If a candidate has a majority, they win. If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the smallest share of the vote is eliminated and their voters' votes are counted for their next-highest preferences. This process continues in successive rounds until a candidate has attained a majority. The above text reads, "tally: winners must earn a majority."

In plurality voting (the system Longmont currently uses in its elections), voters pick one candidate and the candidate that receives more votes than any other candidate (a plurality of votes) is elected to office. This sounds fair at first, but in elections with more than two candidates, the candidate who receives a plurality of votes can still win even if the vast majority of voters choose to back other candidates.

Under RCV, voters instead have the opportunity to rank candidates in the order of their preference. When votes are tallied, all first-choice votes are counted. If a candidate has a majority, they win. If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. Their supporters' ballots are counted for the voters next-highest choices. The process continues until a candidate has earned a majority of the votes. Only once a majority has been attained is a candidate declared the winner.

Why is RCV Better than Plurality Voting?

RCV offers numerous benefits over pick-one plurality voting. Specifically, RCV can:

Reduce extremism and promote civil campaigning
Prevent candidates from acting as "spoilers"
Produce more representative political leaders
Reduce the influence of money in politics

Reducing Extremism & Promoting Civil Campaigning

RCV can promote civil campaigning because candidates have an incentive not to alienate their opponents' voters. Even if voters are unlikely to rank a given candidate first, candidates can still aim to be voters' next-highest preference and benefit in the event that their first-choice is eliminated. Research suggests that this leads to less negative campaigning and elections focused on issues, not personalities.

Preventing The "Spoiler Effect"

In plurality voting elections, candidates are often opposed to other candidates with similar ideologies or bases of support entering the race. This is because candidates fear that similar candidates will "spoil" the election by siphoning off votes that would have otherwise gone to the original candidate. Fear of the spoiler effect can lead to elections with fewer choices for voters to pick between and can prevent individuals with valuable ideas and contributions to make from running for office. RCV eliminates the possibility of the spoiler effect because voters no longer have to declare a preference for just one candidate, and can instead support as many as they would like by ranking them in the order of their preference. If a voter's first choice candidate is eliminated, their vote is automatically counted for their next-highest preference.

More Representative Political Leaders

Under pick-one plurality voting, a candidate only needs to win more votes than any other candidate—a plurality—to win an election. If more than two candidates are running, this means that a winning candidate can enter office even though a most of their constituents decided to back other candidates. In contrast, a candidate elected under RCV is significantly more likely to be a supported by a majority of the electorate. This ensures that elected officials are more representative of the voting public and prevents candidates supported by narrow factions of voters from winning crowded races.

Reducing the Influence of Money in Politics

There is an incredibly strong correlation between the winning candidate and the candidate who raises the most money in pick-one plurality voting elections, making fundraising one of the most important aspects of the campaign and giving wealthy donors an outsize level of political influence. In RCV elections, on the other hand, this correlation decreases significantly, and candidates with less money have a significantly better chance at being elected into office, putting political power back into the hands of the voters.

What About Proportional RCV?

Ranked choice voting can also be used to elect multiple winners to office on the same ranked ballot. When RCV is used to choose multiple winners, it acts a form of proportional representation, helping an elected body to be more reflective of the partisan makeup and overall demographics of the electorate who votes for it. As such, multi-winner RCV is also known as proportional ranked choice voting (pRCV).

Several members of Longmont's City Council are elected from the city at-large. pRCV could be used to efficiently choose these at-large councilmembers all on the same ballot, while at the same time ensuring that they collectively represent Longmont voters as a whole.

As a form of proportional representation, multi-winner RCV helps elected bodies look like the voters who voted for them.

Ballots look the same regardless of whether an RCV election is single-winner or proportional.

Practice Filling Out an RCV Ballot

Want to practice filling out a ranked choice ballot? You can try it for yourself using t his tool on the City of Boulder's website!

Single-Winner RCV Explainer

Proportional RCV Explainer*

*This video refers to pRCV as the "single transferable vote." Both terms refer to the same system of voting.