Ranked choice voting works by letting you rank candidates in order of preference instead of choosing just one. Every ballot is first counted for its top pick. If no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the last-place candidate is eliminated and each of their ballots is reassigned to whichever remaining candidate that voter ranked next. The rounds keep going until someone crosses the majority line. The system acts like an instant runoff, folded into a single election.
What the Ballot Looks Like
A ranked choice ballot uses a grid. Candidate names run down the left in rows, and the columns across the top represent ranks: 1st Choice, 2nd Choice, 3rd Choice, and so on. You fill in one bubble per column, at the row of the candidate you want at that rank. Keeping the candidate on one axis and the rank on the other is meant to reduce confusion compared to listing everything in a single column.
Many jurisdictions cap how many rankings you can give, even when more candidates are on the ballot. Five is common in single-winner races; some places allow as few as three. The cap applies to your rankings, not to who can appear on the ballot. Digital ballot-marking devices follow the same grid layout, and all voting equipment has to meet the baseline standards set by the Election Assistance Commission’s Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.1U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Voluntary Voting System Guidelines
How to Rank Your Choices
Fill in the oval where your favorite candidate’s row meets the 1st Choice column. Mark your second favorite in the 2nd Choice column, your third in the 3rd Choice column, and continue as far as you want to go. You don’t have to use every ranking. A ballot with only a first choice still counts, but it can’t transfer to anyone else if that candidate is eliminated.
Two mistakes cause the most trouble:
- Marking two candidates in the same column, such as two first choices, creates an overvote at that ranking. Some systems skip the overvoted column and look for your next valid ranking; others stop counting your ballot at that point.
- Leaving a column blank and then marking a later one is handled differently by jurisdiction. Some skip the gap and count the next preference. Maine and Alaska stop counting once they hit more than one consecutive blank ranking.
If you notice a mistake before turning in your ballot, you can ask a poll worker for a replacement. Most jurisdictions allow at least two or three replacements per voter. Once the ballot is cast, it’s final.
How the Votes Are Counted in a Single-Winner Race
The count starts with every voter’s first choice. If any candidate has more than 50% of the ballots, that candidate wins and the count is over. If no one has a majority, the counting moves into elimination rounds.
In each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped. Every ballot that had been counting for that candidate is reassigned to whichever remaining candidate the voter ranked next. Totals are recalculated. If someone now has a majority, they win. If not, the next lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and the cycle repeats.2Maine State Legislature. Maine Revised Statutes Title 21-A 723-A – Determination of Winner in Election for an Office
A Worked Example
Picture a race with four candidates and 1,000 voters. After first choices are tallied: Candidate A has 380, Candidate B has 310, Candidate C has 200, and Candidate D has 110. Nobody has more than 500, so the elimination rounds start.
Candidate D is eliminated first. Say 60 of D’s voters ranked A second, 30 ranked B, and 20 ranked C. New totals: A 440, B 340, C 220. Still no majority. Candidate C is eliminated. If 150 of C’s 220 voters put B as their next available choice and 70 put A, the final tally is A 510, B 490. Candidate A wins.
Election officials typically publish the round-by-round results so any voter can trace exactly how the sequence played out.
When a Ballot Runs Out of Rankings
A ballot is exhausted when every candidate the voter ranked has been eliminated but the race is still going. Since voters aren’t required to rank everyone, some ballots have nowhere to transfer. An exhausted ballot drops out of the active count for the remaining rounds.
That matters for how the final numbers read. The “majority” the winner ends up with is a majority of the ballots still active in the final round, not necessarily a majority of every ballot originally cast. A winner might hold 55% of the final-round vote and less than 50% of the first-round total. Research on U.S. ranked choice elections has found exhaustion rates ranging from roughly 10% to 27% of ballots, depending on the number of candidates and the ranking cap.
Critics argue this undercuts the majority requirement. Supporters say an exhausted ballot reflects a voter’s deliberate choice not to express a preference among the remaining candidates, similar to not showing up for a traditional runoff. Either way, knowing exhaustion exists is what keeps the final totals from looking confusing.
How Multi-Winner Races Work
When more than one seat is on the line in the same race, ranked choice voting uses a variant called the single transferable vote. Winning no longer requires more than 50%. Instead, candidates need to reach a threshold called a quota, which scales to the number of seats available.
The Quota
The most common formula is the Droop quota: divide the total valid ballots by the number of seats plus one, then add one. With 9,000 votes and three seats, the math is 9,000 ÷ (3 + 1) + 1 = 2,251. Any candidate who reaches 2,251 votes wins a seat. The formula is built so that no more candidates than there are seats can ever hit the number.
Surplus Transfers and Elimination
When a candidate goes past the quota, the surplus votes transfer to remaining candidates based on the next preferences on those ballots. The transfer is proportional: if a candidate collected 3,000 votes but only needed 2,251, the 749 extra votes move at a fractional value, so every one of that candidate’s ballots contributes a small piece to its next-ranked candidate instead of some ballots transferring in full and others not at all.
If no candidate reaches the quota after surpluses have been distributed, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their ballots transfer at full value, just like in a single-winner race. Electing candidates who hit the quota, transferring surpluses, and eliminating the lowest continues until every seat is filled. Different groups of voters within the same district can each elect a representative roughly in proportion to their share of the electorate.
Where Ranked Choice Voting Is Actually Used
Maine uses ranked choice voting for congressional races, gubernatorial elections, state legislative contests, and presidential primaries. Alaska uses it for all general elections, including the presidential race, after voters narrowly rejected a repeal in 2024 by 664 votes. More than 50 cities and counties use it for local offices, including New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and several cities in Utah and Virginia.
The authority for these systems rests on Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which lets state legislatures set the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections subject to congressional override.3Congress.gov. Article I Section 4 – Constitution Annotated For state and local offices, states set their own election methods.
The trend is not one-directional. As of mid-2025, seventeen states have passed laws banning ranked choice voting outright, with six of those bans passing in 2024 and another six in 2025. Whether you can vote this way depends entirely on where you live.