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Learn About Voting

Understanding Voting Systems

Learn how different voting methods work and why they matter for making better decisions.

Why voting systems matter

Different voting systems can produce completely different results from the same votes. Better systems allow true preference voting, ensure majority support, reduce negative campaigning, and represent diverse viewpoints.

Voting systems compared

First Past The Post

The most common system - voters pick one candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins.

How it works:

  1. 1Each voter selects exactly one candidate
  2. 2Votes are tallied for each candidate
  3. 3The candidate with the most votes wins
SimpleEncourages strategic votingSuffers from spoiler effect

Instant Runoff (IRV)

Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated.

How it works:

  1. 1Voters rank candidates in order of preference
  2. 2First-choice votes are counted
  3. 3If no candidate has majority, eliminate last place
  4. 4Redistribute those votes to voters' next choices
  5. 5Repeat until someone has a majority
Eliminates spoilersEnsures majority supportMore complex counting

Kemeny-Young

A sophisticated voting system that finds the ranking that minimizes the total disagreement (measured as bubble sort distance) with voter preferences. It's considered one of the most mathematically sound voting methods.

How it works:

  1. 1Voters rank candidates in order of preference
  2. 2For each possible ranking of candidates, calculate the sum of bubble sort distance between the ranking and each voter's ballot
  3. 3The ranking with the lowest sum of bubble sort distance wins
Highly accurateSatisfies many fairness criteriaComputationally intensive
S

Schulze

Finds strongest paths between candidates in a network of pairwise preferences

RP

Ranked Pairs

Considers pairwise victories in order of strength to build a complete ranking

C

Copeland

Counts wins and losses in pairwise comparisons between all candidates

M

Minimax

Minimizes the worst pairwise defeat to find the most acceptable candidate

RankPoll also supports Baldwin, Nanson, Coombs, Bottom Two Runoff, Smith, and more.

Video resources

Why Democracy Is Mathematically Impossible

Democracy might be mathematically impossible – here’s why.

The flaw in every voting system

A story about the fundamental flaw in every voting system — strategic voting.

Technical references

Deep dive into the mathematics and theory

Interactive

Try It Yourself

The best way to understand different voting systems is to see them in action. Create a poll and experiment with different voting methods to see how they affect the results.