About the DemoChoice Web Poll

Rank the candidates you support — first is best. Tap + to add a candidate to your ranking, and use the ▲ ▼ arrows to reorder. Your lower choices won’t hurt the chances of your higher choices.

• If you don’t rank a candidate, it means you’d rather not have your vote count than have it count toward that candidate.
• Only the order of your ranked candidates matters — not the actual numbers.
• You can’t give two or more candidates the same rank.

This is an “instant runoff” poll, allowing voters to find a strongly supported winner from many candidates with minimal worries about “wasting” votes on weak candidates or “splitting” votes between similar candidates. It improves upon “most votes wins,” where:

• With more than two candidates, someone can win even though most voters prefer someone else.
• Voting for your favorite candidate can help your least favorite win.
• Two similar candidates can split the vote so neither can win.

With instant runoffs these problems practically never occur. It also improves upon two-round runoff elections, where the inconvenience of a second trip to the polls results in low turnout.

After casting your ballot, follow the “how your vote counted” link to see exactly which candidate your vote went to in each round. In the final round, your vote counted toward the remaining candidate ranked highest on your ballot, or toward “none of these” if all your ranked candidates were eliminated.

Ties are statistically rare in public elections with large numbers of ballots. In a demonstration poll, they can happen more frequently. Ties are broken by comparing votes in successively earlier rounds, or by random lot if that fails.

Yes, if there is one winner. This method works well for electing mayors, governors, or presidents. The multi-winner version is best for boards, councils, and legislatures — it gives more voters representation than the usual method of dividing voters into single-winner districts.

DemoChoice can routinely assign more than 90% of voters to representatives they support. Winners receive nearly equal shares of votes, each representative has the unanimous support of their own voters, and there is no appreciable spoiler or vote-splitting effect to discourage candidates from running. See the results pages on the DemoChoice site for real examples.

This method was first proposed in 1821, within a generation of the adoption of the US Constitution. Similar methods were proposed independently in the US, Britain, and Denmark, and were used in public and private elections in that century. John Stuart Mill tried unsuccessfully to enact it when he served in the House of Commons. Australia and Ireland have used this method since the early 20th century; New Zealand, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have adopted it more recently.

About two dozen US cities, including New York and Cincinnati, elected their city councils this way in the first half of the 20th century. The only survivor from that era is Cambridge, MA. Since 2002, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Santa Fe, and many other cities have adopted instant runoff or multi-winner ranked-choice voting. Maine was the first state to use instant runoffs for statewide elections, in 2018.

They did — try pressing your browser’s Refresh button.

We want everyone who uses this site to leave with a comfortable understanding of how it works. Please feel free to ask a question. Our library has many links to other explanations and discussions.

Your address is used to send a confirmation of your vote. In the rare event that your vote is not properly recorded, you may be contacted. Voter address information is not used for any other purpose.

DemoChoice is an ongoing project and user feedback is essential. Everyone has a slightly different experience — it helps to hear what you found illuminating and what you found confusing or cumbersome. Please share your thoughts!

If you are interested in promoting ranked-choice voting, FairVote can provide more information and help you find like-minded people. Also, browse the DemoChoice library.