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.

DemoChoice polls are designed to produce satisfying representation for everyone, where any majority of representatives was elected by a majority of voters.

If your favorite candidate has too few votes to win, your vote will be transferred to your next favorite, if possible. If your favorite has more than enough votes, some ballots may be partially transferred so that all winners represent roughly equal numbers of voters.

In a democracy worthy of the name, everyone’s voice is heard, and decisions require at least majority support: more people should support an idea than oppose it.

If you elect representatives by majority vote and they make decisions by majority vote, a small group can overrule the will of almost 75% of voters — and up to half of all voters don’t even have representatives who will express their protest.

Usually Americans elect people by “most votes wins” instead of majority, so it can be even worse. And worse than that, the people in power can group you with others who will vote against your favorite — they can decide which voters gain representation. No wonder so many people have lost faith and don’t bother to vote.

But these goals are achievable. DemoChoice gives you the freedom to express your preferences in detail among many viable choices, and counts your votes in a way that pursues the democratic goals above. It can usually accommodate almost everyone — voting becomes a positive and rewarding experience.

DemoChoice attempts to assign everyone to their favorite representative. Two adjustments make this work:

• Not all candidates can win. There are usually more candidates than seats, so voters for candidates with the fewest votes must choose their next favorite.
• Representatives should have equal support. Because representatives have equal voting power, they should each represent an equal number of voters. If a candidate receives more than enough votes to win, the extra votes are counted toward voters’ next favorite instead.

It’s easiest to understand by watching the votes move on the results page. Here are the detailed rules:

For a single-winner instant runoff, rule 5 has no effect, and the process stops as soon as any candidate reaches a majority.

The threshold is the minimum number of votes needed to guarantee election. It is calculated as:

active votes seats + 1 (rounded down, plus one vote)

For example, with 1,000 active votes and 4 seats, the threshold is 1000÷5 = 200 votes. This ensures that at most 4 candidates can exceed it simultaneously. Active votes are total ballots minus exhausted ballots — ballots on which all ranked candidates have been eliminated.

When a surplus is transferred, the fraction of each qualifying ballot that transfers is:

total votes − threshold recently cast ballots

This ensures all winners represent equal-sized constituencies, and that voters aren’t discouraged from voting for popular candidates. The first-come-first-served rule minimizes the number of ballots split into fractions.

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.