Ranked choice voting: How it works, which cities use it

While most voters are familiar with the single-choice voting method used in statewide races, there is still some confusion about ranked choice voting.

Five cities — Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, St. Louis Park and Minnetonka — use ranked choice voting in some instances, generally for mayoral and city council races.

Some cities, like Minneapolis, allow voters to rank up to three candidates on their ballot. Others, like St. Paul, which allows voters to rank up to six candidates, offer even more choice. For all of them, though, the order candidates are ranked by voters is important.

That’s because unlike a single-vote election, where the candidate that receives the most votes is the winner, ranked choice voting can result in multiple rounds of counting.

How it works

In the first round of counting, only the first-choice votes are counted, just like in a single-choice election. If one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, that candidate is the winner — again, just like a normal election.

However, if no candidate receives a majority after the initial round of counting, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.

Then, any ballots that ranked the now-eliminated candidate as the top choice have their vote cast for the candidate marked as the second choice.

Officials then tally up the votes again, and that process continues until one candidate receives more than 50% of the total vote.

Basically, it’s like having a runoff election — another election when no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the main election — instantly, but instead of voters having to go back to the polls, their vote is cast based on the order of preference marked on their initial ballot.

To see what your ballot looks like, click here.
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