Ranked-choice voting: ranking candidates and counting in rounds

Ranked-choice voting (RCV), also called instant-runoff voting, lets voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority of first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those ballots count for their next continuing choice, round by round, until a winner emerges. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that Alaska and Maine are the only states to use RCV for statewide elections and that 19 states prohibit it in all or some elections.

Definition

NCSL describes RCV as a system in which “voters rank all the candidates for a given office by their preference,” noting “this is why it’s sometimes referred to as ‘instant-runoff voting’”.⁠¹ Maine’s statute gives the precise counting rules:⁠²

• A candidate who receives first rankings on more than 50% of ballots cast for the office wins outright.
• Otherwise, “in each round, the number of votes for each continuing candidate must be counted,” and “each continuing ballot counts as one vote for its highest-ranked continuing candidate for that round.”
• The candidate “with the fewest votes in a round” is defeated, and if more than two continuing candidates remain, that candidate is “removed from consideration and a new round begins.”
• “If there are 2 or fewer continuing candidates, the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner.”

An exhausted ballot is one that no longer counts for any continuing candidate. Under Maine law, a ballot is exhausted if it “does not rank any continuing candidate,” “contains an overvote at the highest continuing ranking,” or “contains 2 or more sequential skipped rankings before its highest continuing ranking”.⁠²

Origin and history

Ranked ballots have a long theoretical history in social choice; see Ranking. In the United States, NCSL lists Alaska and Maine as the two states using RCV statewide, citing Alaska Stat. 15.15.350 and Maine’s Title 21-A.⁠¹ NCSL also reports that 19 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming) prohibit RCV “in all or some elections,” that 8 states explicitly permit or require it, and that 23 have unclear legal status, as of its March 23, 2026 update.⁠¹

How ranked-choice voting is used and assessed

Arguments made for RCV:

• A winner must reach a majority of continuing ballots, rather than a plurality.
• Voters can support a preferred candidate without fear of “spoiling” the race for a similar candidate.
• It replaces a separate runoff election, saving cost and avoiding low-turnout runoffs.

Arguments made against RCV:

• Ballots become exhausted, so the final-round “majority” may be a majority of continuing ballots rather than of all ballots cast.
• Ranking many candidates is harder for some voters, and errors such as overvotes can exhaust a ballot.
• Counting in rounds can delay results and requires centralized tabulation, which some see as reducing transparency.
• Like all methods, RCV can produce counterintuitive outcomes in some elections; social choice theory shows no method avoids every such problem.⁠³

Claims about RCV’s effects on turnout, civility, or representation are empirical questions; this page does not summarize that research, which would need its own sourced review.

Common confusions and neighboring terms

• RCV vs. approval voting. Approval voting asks voters to mark every acceptable candidate, with no order.
• RCV vs. ranked priority surveys. A survey ranking of subjects is not an election; its results can be summarized many ways. See Collective priorities.
• RCV vs. single transferable vote. STV uses ranked ballots to elect several winners proportionally; RCV for a single office elects one.
• RCV vs. top-two or top-four primaries. Those are primary systems that decide which candidates advance; RCV is a method of counting a single contest, and the two can be combined.

How My Vote Forward uses the term

My Vote Forward does not run elections and takes no position on whether jurisdictions should adopt RCV. It uses RCV as an example of how the method of counting shapes outcomes, a theme of Collective priorities, and asks that any ranked priority summary state its counting rule.

Unresolved questions

• How should exhausted ballots be reported so that “majority” claims are clear?
• What is the right number of rankings to allow, balancing voter burden against exhaustion?
• Should ranked priority surveys use RCV-style elimination, or a method that uses the full ranking?