Drumroll, please… đ„ Weâre thrilled to announce the results of our recent ranked-choice voting experiment to determine who YOU think should be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. Thanks a ton to everyone who participated!
Who won??
The winner is… Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona! He clinched the victory with a solid 53% of the votes in the fourth round.
Whatâs a âRoundâ? Great question! Each “round” is like a series of elimination challenges in your favorite reality show. In Round 1, we count up all the first-choice votes. If no one has more than half, the candidate with the fewest votes gets booted off the island (or ballot). Those voters then have their vote go to their next favorite candidate. This process continues until someone wins by a majority… and “THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN.”
So, if the winner needs a majority of the votes (50% + 1) to win, and we had 1,276 voters in our experiment, the magic number to win here was 639 votes.
Let’s watch our winner get there…
You can read a more detailed statistical breakdown here.
How does this compare to antiquated âFirst Past the Postâ? You’ll notice that Sen. Mark Kelly had more first-choice preferences (at only about 30% of all ballots) than anyone else in the first round, so he’d win this poll under both the status quo AND Ranked Choice Voting. But only Ranked Choice Voting goes all the way to the finish line and proves Kelly enjoys true majority support from our voters.
Imagine you bet on a race and half way through all the horses laid down? This is First Past the Post, which weirdly, doesn’t even have a pre-defined post, and the winners often don’t even finish the race, leaving us guessing who should have won. RCV has a winner go the distance every time, no matter how many run, earning that prize of representing us.
Inspired by this process? Want more of your friends, family, and followers to see Ranked Choice Voting in action? Help spread the word by easily sharing this experiment on your social media platforms by clicking below: