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Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) can take various forms. Just like the engine in a car could be a Chevy 454 like the 1970 Corvette or a 3.0-liter diesel like the 8th generation Toyota Hilux, ranked-choice voting can take several different forms. While the engines may get you to your final destination, they each do so in slightly different ways, as do the various flavors of RCV.
In its purest form, RCV would be one general election in November with all qualified candidates on the ballot. Similar to the current jungle primaries that California and Louisiana hold. The difference is that every candidate will be ranked from first to last. As in our current system, the election is over if a candidate claims 50 percent plus one vote.
However, if no one has a majority, whoever has the fewest first-place votes is removed, and their second-choice votes are given to the respective candidates. If there still isn’t a majority vote winner, the second-fewest first-choice ballots are redistributed to their second choice. Any ballots redistributed from round one, which had a second-place vote for the newly eliminated candidate, will then be redistributed to their third choice. This process continues until someone reaches a majority.
The Alaska Model takes a slightly different approach. It is a two-stage election. The first election contains one ballot with all of the possible candidates. In this first stage, voters cast a vote for their preferred candidate, like in the traditional process, just like in the Jungle Primary model in Louisiana and California, where all candidates are on the first ballot.
What is different is the second stage, where the top four vote winners from the first stage are placed in a general election in November, where voters rank the four candidates. The general election in the Alaska Model is no different from pure RCV. A Nevada Model will be coming into play in 2026. The Nevada Model is the same as the Alaska Model except that there will be five candidates instead of four selected in the primary.
The Maine Model uses RCV for all federal races where three or more candidates are on the ballot. It is used in the Presidential preference primary, state-wide primary, and general election. This model still follows the usual party primary election followed by the general election. However, there are no runoffs since, at both stages, RCV determines the candidate who receives the majority vote to advance to the general election.
There are two other approaches for multimember districts: the bottoms-up system and the sequential RCV. The bottoms-up approach is easy to understand in a city council with 15 members and 17 candidates. The candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, votes are redistributed, and then the process continues until there are as many candidates left as seats, in this example, fifteen.
Sequential RCV works in the other direction from the bottoms-up system. After the first candidate is elected, all ballots cast for them are removed, but the second choice is redistributed. Other ballots count toward the highest‐ranked choices who have not been elected. As each successive candidate reaches a majority, the round moves to the next highest, and the previous candidate's votes are distributed until no available seats are left.
There are many nuances, but the result is the same. Someone is elected who represents the majority will of the voters. There are no runoffs weeks after an election for only the diehard supporters to swing an election away from what would be more representative of the district. Like the electric motor or a diesel engine, you’ll still get to where you are going.
