In Ranked-Choice Voting, what triggers the final decision of a winner?

Prepare for your Honors Voting and Elections Exam. Study with practice questions and detailed explanations. Ace your test!

In ranked-choice voting, the winner is decided once a candidate has a majority of the active ballots after the transfers from eliminated candidates. Start by tallying first choices; if someone has more than half, they win. If not, eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes and transfer those ballots to the next preferred candidate on each ballot. Repeat this elimination and transfer process until a candidate holds a majority of the remaining active ballots, at which point that candidate is declared the winner. This makes the option describing a majority after transfers the correct one, because the final decision hinges on reaching a majority through successive transfers, not on a fixed number of rounds, turnout thresholds, or simply having the most first-choice votes initially.