Ranked voting

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Names

Numbers

Various types of ranked voting ballot

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Single-winner methods Single vote-runoff methods Plurality (FPP) Two-round (US: Jungle primary) Partisan primary Alternative vote (US: Ranked-choice) Condorcet-IRV Condorcet methods Ranked pairs Schulze Minimax Kemeny–Young Nanson Condorcet-IRV Maximal lottery Positional voting First-preference plurality Borda count Anti-plurality voting Cardinal / graded methods Score voting Approval voting Majority judgment STAR voting Quadratic voting
Proportional representation Party-list List type Open list Closed list Localized list Spare vote Apportionment Highest averages Largest remainders National remnant Biproportional apportionment Single transferable vote (Quota methods) Hare STV (Gregory · Wright) Schulze STV CPO-STV Single non-transferable vote Single divisible vote Approval-based committee Thiele's method Phragmen's method Expanding approvals rule Method of equal shares Weighted and Fractional social choice Direct representation Interactive representation Liquid democracy Maximal lottery
Mixed systems By type of representation Winner-take-most Mixed-member proportional Non-compensatory mixed systems Parallel voting Majority bonus Compensatory mixed systems Additional member system Mixed single vote Scorporo Double simultaneous vote Mixed ballot transferable vote Alternative Vote Plus Dual-member proportional Rural–urban proportional
Voting system criteria Spoiler-resistance Condorcet criterion Smith independence Spoiler independence Clone independence Strategy-resistance No lesser evil voting IIA Later-no-harm Later-no-help Rational response Participation criterion Monotonicity criterion Reversal symmetry
Social and collective choice Impossibility theorems Arrow's theorem Impossibility of majority-rule Moulin's impossibility theorem Gibbard's theorem Fishburn's theorem Positive results Median voter theorem Condorcet's jury theorem May's theorem Campbell-Kelly theorem Harsanyi's utilitarian theorem Tournament sets Smith set Landau set Copeland set Split-cycle set Bipartisan set Tournament solution
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The term ranked voting refers to any voting system where voters rank candidates or options—in a sequence from first, second, third, and onwards—on their ballots. Ranked voting systems vary based on the ballot marking process, how preferences are tabulated and counted, the number of seats available for election, and whether voters are allowed to rank candidates equally.

Ranked voting systems are opposed to cardinal voting methods, which allow voters to indicate how strongly they support different candidates (e.g. on a scale from 0-10). Cardinal ballots provide more information than ordinal ballots and as a result, they are not subject to many of the problems in ranked-choice voting (such as Arrow's impossibility theorem).

One example of a ranked voting rule (Dowdall's method) assigns 1, 1⁄2, 1⁄3... points to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... candidates on each ballot. In addition, some countries elect policymakers by thealternative vote, a staged variant of the plurality system.

Although generally not described as one, the most commonly-used ranked voting system is the plurality voting rule, which gives one "point" (vote) to the candidate ranked first, and zero points to all others.

In the US and Australia, the terms ranked-choice voting and preferential voting are usually used to refer to the alternative or single transferable vote by way of conflation. However, these have also been used to refer to other ranked voting systems, and academics generally prefer more precise terms.^[1]