What Is RCV?

Ranked Choice Voting is a way to fix our broken election system by giving voters more power and more choices. Our elections now are dominated by negative campaigning, Big Money and wealthy special interests. Corruption goes unchecked. Far too many people are shut out from participating in a government that doesn’t look like them and doesn’t represent them.

RCV is simple. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. Voters rank candidates in order of preference instead of voting for just one candidate. Their preferred candidate is their first choice, their back-up candidate is their second choice, they can designate a third choice, and so on.

If a candidate wins a majority—more than 50%—of the first-choice votes, that candidate is elected.

If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. That candidate's supporters then have their votes count for their second choice. The votes are counted again to see if one candidate has won a majority. If so, that candidate is the winner. If not, the elimination process continues until one candidate has a majority of the vote.

Ranked Choice Voting is used by over 10 million Americans, in dozens of places ranging from Maine to Utah to Minnesota. In Oregon, Benton County is using RCV to elect its Board of Commissioners. To see where else RCV is used in the United States, go to RCV in the USA.