If a candidate wins more than 50% of the votes cast, a winner is declared, and no other counting will occur. However, if no candidate wins a majority (50% + 1), as seen in the scenario above, counting continues to round two.

In round two, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated from the contest. Even though the candidate has been eliminated, the voters who had that candidate as their first choice will then have their vote count for the candidate they marked as their next choice.

After adding these votes to the totals of the other candidates, you can see below that these candidates' vote totals increase. This process of eliminating the lowest candidates and adding the votes to remaining candidates continues until a candidate receives more than a majority of the remaining votes cast. In the scenario above, Candidate A reached a majority and is declared the winner after Candidate C was eliminated.

To compare single-winner and multi-winner ranked-choice voting, download our brief report laying out the benefits and best uses of each method.

Single-Winner RCV v. Multi-Winner RCV