Part of the Politics and Economics series |
Electoral systems |
---|
Politics portal Economics portal |
A top-four primary[1] or top-four ranked-choice voting[2] is an election method using a nonpartisan blanket primary as the first step.
Up to four candidates, those with the most votes from the primary, regardless of the political party, then undergo a first round of Single non-transferable vote (SNTV) voting. The round two (general) election, held some weeks later, uses instant-runoff voting (IRV, also known as ranked-choice voting, RCV) to confirm a winner among these top candidates.[3][4]
The Final-Four Voting system was first proposed by Katherine Gehl, an American business leader turned political innovator and philanthropist, and Michael Porter, professor at Harvard Business School, in a report they wrote for Harvard Business School in 2017. In “Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America,” they made the case for an open, single-ballot top-four primary followed by an instant-runoff voting general election.[5]
Its first use was in 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election. It can be seen as a replacement to the blanket primary, which advances only the top-two candidates. It was first advocated by FairVote in 2012.[6][7] FairVote proposed a statutory model in 2015.[8]
A top-four primary can be seen as a variation of a two-round system, in which the second round (general election) is always held, even if a candidate gains a majority in the first (primary) round. A candidate receiving 20% of the primary vote is logically guaranteed to pass a top-four primary.[9]
One variation, called Final Five Voting, allows five candidates to pass the open primary.[10]
afbe
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search