How does ranked-choice voting work?

This year's election represents a major test for ranked-choice voting in Minneapolis. Thirty-five candidates are competing in the most hotly contested mayor's race the city has seen in 20 years. Under the city's ranked choice voting system, also called instant runoff voting, voters choose up to three candidates and rank them -- first choice, second choice, third choice. This video explains how the votes will be counted.

[lu]

*"BYE BYE BLUE"*
Yeah...I was totally not creeped out by that.

[alvinmwangi]

By far and away the most comprehensive explanation of ranked choice voting. Kudos to whoever thought of this presentation

[SKF]

The first explanation out of six I tried that actually explained this completely and understandably.

[bergeronwb]

Thank you for taking time to put this together. I now understand the process a lot better.

[Carlosconga]

Great explanation, but you failed to display one of the greatest mechanistic flaws of RCV. You showed a situation where all of blue’s next ranked votes were for the top two contenders, purple and green. If any of those votes had been for orange, their vote is discarded, which is a form of disenfranchisement. This happens in all RCV elections where there are more than 3 candidates, and the counting goes through more than 1 round of instant runoff. Approval voting is much better for this, and it eliminates vote splitting, which RCV does not.

[sweetkitty]

This is by far the simplest illustration I have seen. Love it!

[tequilacollins]

The visualization of stacking the colors was excellent. I'm a math person and understood ranked choice voting already, but this would be very helpful for a visual person.

[stuart]

This video was by far the easiest to understand. I now understand RCV. I watched several other RCV videos on YT and came away from those even more confused then when I started. Thank you for making this truly simple and straight forward.

[jimmyperullo]

Anybody else notice how the only color the first guy wanted nothing to do with is the one that got picked in the end?

[annamakoto]

This is AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for simplifying this for me. I have to lead out elections for my student representative council and I liked this voting system but didn't know how it worked properly. Thank you so much again :)

[alansdad]

Better yet, let's have a March Madness-like tournament to determine the president.

[robinsoon]

This by far is the best video on explaining the ranked-choice voting system.

[allanjeong]

One main advantage that doesn’t get mentioned or given any emphasis is that RCV increases the power of democracy and collaboration by enabling candidates to adopt ideas proposed by opposing candidates to: 1) win ranked votes from people that support their opponents; and most all 2) add, revise & improve their proposals/solutions in their campaign platforms.

[mitingant]

And Massachusetts just voted against RCV and for 2-party system where you have to vote for "lesser evil".

[jseymourmpls]

Ranked choice voting did not work as advertised in the Minneapolis municipal elections of 2021. In the Fifth Ward, no majority was attained and the winner was declared with just 39% of the vote. For the record.

[sohappy]

If they use rank choice voting in 1992 Bill Clinton would not have been president. Republican vote was split between Ross Perot and George Bush 41. Ross Perot as a conservative and got 15% of the vote. And it’s totally bogus we should use it at all.

[monetlemon]

That actually sounds like it could be a good idea. Way better than the corrupt system we have now. I'd definitely do my part to make sure Delaware approves of Ranked Choice Voting

[directorofmovement]

I thought I understood RCV, but this simple vid taught me more!

[Picklejam]

Should use this method in all elections

[keppela]

Wait, you didn't count green's second choices. If they were all purple, then purple would have been the winner. It doesn't really make sense as you present it.