The term ranked voting, also known as preferential voting or ranked-choice voting, pertains to any voting system where voters indicate a rank to order candidates or options—in a sequence from first, second, third, and onwards—on their ballots. Ranked voting systems vary based on the ballot marking process, how preferences are tabulated and counted, the number of seats available for election, and whether voters are allowed to rank candidates equally.
Ranked voting systems are opposed to cardinal voting methods, which allow voters to indicate how strongly they support different candidates (e.g. on a scale from 0-10). Cardinal ballots provide more information than ordinal ballots and as a result, they are not subject to many of the problems in ranked-choice voting (such as Arrow's impossibility theorem).
The most commonly-used example of a ranked-choice system is the familiar plurality voting rule, which gives one "point" (vote) to the candidate ranked first, and zero points to all others (making additional marks unnecessary). This is an example of a positional system, a system that assigns points to candidates based on their ranking in the ordering. Another example (Dowdall's method) assigns 1, 1⁄2, 1⁄3... points to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... candidates on each ballot. In addition, some countries elect policymakers by instant-runoff voting, a staged variant of the plurality system.
In the US, the term ranked-choice voting is most commonly used by organizations like FairVote and RepresentUs to refer to instant-runoff voting or single transferable vote. However, it has also been used for other ranked voting systems.[1]
^"Bill Status H.424: An act relating to town, city, and village elections for single-seat offices using ranked-choice voting". legislature.vermont.gov. Retrieved 2024-03-23. Condorcet winner. If a candidate is the winning candidate in every paired comparison, the candidate shall be declared the winner of the election.
The term rankedvoting, also known as preferential voting or ranked-choice voting, pertains to any voting system where voters indicate a rank to order...
Charlie. Rankedvoting systems, such as those used in Australia and Ireland, use a rankedvote. In a voting system that uses a scored vote (or range vote), the...
first-past-the-post (FPTP), instant-runoff voting (IRV), block voting, and ranked-vote block voting – one party or voting bloc can take all the seats in a district...
also has similarities to other ranked-choice systems. Unlike the contingent vote, systems like instant-runoff voting (IRV), Coombs' method, and Baldwin's...
Ranked pairs (or RP), sometimes called the Tideman method, is a tournament-style system of ranked-choice voting first proposed by Nicolaus Tideman in...
first-past-the-post voting, plurality block voting, the two-round (runoff) system and rankedvoting (STV or Instant-runoff voting). Mixed systems and...
winner, path voting, and path winner. Smith Score is a rated voting method which elects the Score voting winner from the Smith set. Ranked Pairs and Schulze...
method (/ˈʃʊltsə/) is a single winner ranked-choice rule developed by Markus Schulze that selects a using ranked ballots. It is also known as the beatpath...
positional voting rules which gives each candidate, for each ballot, a number of points corresponding to the number of candidates ranked lower. In the...
[citation needed] Ranked-choice voting, the other class of voting methods Plurality voting, the degenerate case of ranked-choice voting Arrow's impossibility...
casts just one vote in a multi-seat district is known as single non-transferable voting. Plurality voting is distinguished from majority voting, in which a...
a hybrid between (rated) score voting and (ranked) instant runoff voting. The first movement to implement STAR voting was centered in Oregon, with chapters...
their choice. FairVote advocated for a number of alternative methods, such as ranked choice voting, single voting, and cumulative voting. The City of Palmdale...
Proxy voting is a form of voting whereby a member of a decision-making body may delegate their voting power to a representative, to enable a vote in absence...
single transferable vote (STV), also called ranked choice voting, is a ranked system: voters rank candidates in order of preference. Voting districts usually...
than required by Arrow: Condorcet cycles create situations where any rankedvoting system that respects majorities must have a spoiler effect. Suppose...
Positional voting is a rankedvoting electoral system in which the options or candidates receive points based on their rank position on each ballot and...
Rock). This is called Condorcet's voting paradox. When there is no single best candidate, tournament solutions (like ranked pairs) choose the candidate closest...
been fully ranked. In multi-member rankedvoting, wasted votes are less common compared to single-member rankedvoting. The number of votes not used to...
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most...
Score voting, sometimes called range voting or average score voting, is an electoral system for single-seat elections. Voters give each candidate a numerical...
Global Information
Politics portal