Ranked-choice voting is a system where, instead of only casting a vote for your favourite candidate, you rank candidates in order of your preference. It sounds simple, but it’s deceptively complicated, and there is a lot of misinformation out there. It’s also relatively new in a lot of jurisdictions, so there’s a learning curve for figuring out how to take advantage of it.
I’m also glossing over some of the complexities here. There are quotas and surpluses and a lot of nuances. There are also races where multiple positions need to be filled. But I think the takeaway is that if you genuinely rank your preferences when you vote, the system ensures that your vote is much more likely to matter than in a traditional system.
You can read more about ranked-choice voting here.
Should I rank all the candidates?
One of the downsides of ranked choice voting is that it’s much more difficult to rank a list of candidates than it is to just choose your one favourite. As the list of candidates gets longer, this just gets exponentially harder. A common strategy is just to rank the candidates you like and then just leave the rest blank.
Now, this is actually a decent strategy if you feel equally negative about all the candidates you don’t want to see elected. If you genuinely don’t care who, amongst the candidates you don’t like, end up getting elected, then feel free to leave all those blank.
However, maybe you do care. I invite you to try a thought experiment. Look at the list of candidates and cross off the ones you like, and review the remaining list. If those were the only candidates running for office, are there some you feel are slightly more palatable than others? Because with ranked choice, that’s literally how it could shake out. Your preferred candidates could be eliminated, leaving only candidates that you don’t like.
A common myth I see in the media and even in voting guides is that you shouldn’t rank people you don’t want to win. But this is a misunderstanding of how the system works. By ranking candidates you don’t like, you aren’t helping them win. You could be helping candidates you dislike slightly less win out over candidates you dislike even more.
It’s easy to understand why people feel this way. When you rank a candidate you don’t particularly like, it can feel like you are voting for them, but as the candidates are eliminated one by one, the more preferences you have recorded, the more likely your ballot will be used to choose a candidate you prefer over the next one in your list.
Case study
So, I’m going to use the 2025 Wellington election for mayor as an example to help illustrate. There are 12 candidates running. I’ve included a photo of the ballot with my first pass at how I think I’m going to rank the 12 candidates. Focus on the point I’m trying to make rather than critique my choices if you can help it. :)
Now, my preferences are left-leaning, and there is a temptation to simply rank the more left-leaning candidates and leave the conservative ones blank. However, there are conservatives, such as Diane Calvert (who I ranked 6) in this race, who I feel is more palatable than Karl Tiefenbacher (8), for example. And then we start getting into the people that don’t just have bad ideas, they are unfit for office, such as Ray Chung (12) or Rob Goulden (11).
So, for a left-leaning voter, the temptation may be to leave all those blank because you don’t want your vote going to a conservative. But you have to consider the scenario where all your left-leaning candidates have been eliminated. Seems unlikely to happen in this case, but it’s something that you should take into account.
So, back to this example, let’s say Diane Calvert wins. You may realise, oh my gosh, since my higher rankings got eliminated, I probably helped her win. Which you sort of did, but you also helped her win over someone that you felt was an even worse candidate.
The Ray Chung effect
In this particular race, one candidate, Ray Chung, is a candidate that no progressive (or reasonable) person wants to vote for. I won’t go into the gory details, but it’s worth pointing out that if you feel he’s the worst possible candidate, and you rank him last, that last-place vote will never actually be used. If the field ends up getting narrowed down to two candidates, there is no more elimination, and the person with the most votes at that point wins. So, nobody’s last ranking ever comes into play. So, if it makes you feel better not to rank Ray Chung, you can leave it blank, and it’s equivalent to ranking him last. For some people, the last-place ranking might feel like a satisfying thing, so it’s up to you.
But it’s worth pointing out that if there’s a candidate that you feel is the worst, and you don’t rank the second-worst candidate, you may be inadvertently helping the worst candidate win. Let’s say that all but three candidates have been eliminated, and the remaining ones are Ray Chung, Karl Tiefenbacher, and Diane Calvert.
Let’s look at my ballot again with the eliminated candidates removed.
If I didn’t rank any of those three candidates, my ballot at that point is no longer relevant. However, since I ranked Diane Calvert, she gets my one vote. Combined with other votes, perhaps she would prevail over Tiefenbacher and Chung. Sure, it’s not the result I wanted, but because I ranked even the candidates I didn’t want to get elected, I ended up with a candidate I don’t like versus one that is unfit for office entirely.
Conclusion
I hope that this helps people understand the power of ranked choice voting. I know it can be depressing to think that an election may come down to a handful of candidates you don’t like, but think about places in the world that don’t have ranked choice voting, and all you ever get is two shit-tastic candidates. With ranked choice, there is a much greater opportunity to elect someone that is broadly liked, but would have failed to get elected under a more traditional voting system.
I feel that if more people leveraged the power of ranked-choice systems, we would be less likely over time to end up with a situation that most people are unhappy with.