What is Ranked-Choice Voting and how does it determine a winner?

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

Ranked-Choice Voting asks voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Start by looking at the first-choice tallies. If someone has more than half, they win. If not, eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes and reallocate those ballots to the next candidate indicated on each ballot. This process of removing the lowest-ranked candidate and transferring their ballots repeats, re-tallying after each round, until a candidate receives a majority of the active votes. This description matches the chosen statement, which captures the transfer and elimination process until a majority is reached. The other descriptions describe different systems: only ranking a top choice ignores deeper preferences; using only the initial first-choice votes is a simple plurality, not ranked-choice; and choosing a winner by random draw has no basis in ranked-choice rules.