What Is Ranked Choice Voting?

Ranked choice voting ("RCV") is a simple and easy change to how we vote that creates better voter experience, better campaigns, and ultimately, better government. It was passed for use in primaries in New York City in 2019, and was used in the 2021 and 2025 city elections.

Ranked choice voting gives voters more power. Instead of picking just one candidate, a voter has the option to rank their candidates in order of preference — 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on.

Check out this Video Explainer:

*This video was originally produced to educate New York City voters about their RCV system. RCV systems can give voters the option to rank more than five candidates.

But why is this a good thing?

RCV does three big things that benefit every voter:

RCV lets you vote for your true favorite, not just the candidate you think is most likely to win. It eliminates the spoiler effect. No more worrying about wasting your vote on someone with no chance to win.
RCV ensures majority support for the winner. Because no candidate can win without more than 50% of the vote, no one can take office if the majority of people didn't want them to. With coalitions and second place votes, the candidate with the broadest support wins!
RCV helps create cleaner and more civil elections. Politicians aren't incentivized to run a negative campaign against their opponents if they want their opponent's supporters to rank them second.

So how exactly does someone win an RCV election?

Voters rank all the candidates from most favorite to least favorite. If a candidate wins outright in the first round, then they win! That's no different than today.

But, if no candidate gets more than 50% of first choice votes, we move to the "instant runoff rounds," where contestants receiving the fewest top-choices are eliminated and their supporters’ ballots are then counted toward the voter's next favorite candidate.

This process “consolidates” the voting power of like-minded voters, no matter how many candidates are running, rather than seeing the strength of their votes diluted and divided between multiple similar candidates. It means no more “spoiler problem”, so more candidates with a variety of backgrounds or ideas can run without worrying about distorting the outcome of the election.

These rounds repeat until one candidate has the support of more than half of the voters. Because winning requires a broad majority of support, candidates need to earn their opponents’ supporters’ 2nd and 3rd choice votes on the ballot. This encourages them to find common ground and talk about the substance of issues, rather than mudslinging — which alienates voters.

Ranked Choice Voting is a simple but powerful solution that gives people a stronger voice and more choice when they vote.

See our full slide deck about Ranked Choice Voting and RCV Albany here.