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In a ranked choice election, you don't just vote for one candidate, you get to rank all the candidates in the order that you like them: your 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, and so on. Unlike traditional, single-choice elections, RCV lets voters share how they feel about all the options, not just one.

No. You should rank at least one candidate as your 1st choice. After that, you can rank as many of the rest as you want. It's a good idea to rank all the candidates. Ranking all of them ensures that your vote will be used to select the winner — even if your favorite doesn't win — and you won't hurt your favorite candidate by ranking more.

No. You can only use each ranking once. You should rank your favorite candidate first and use your other choices for the other candidates.

Most elections have one winner, like a race for mayor or governor. In a ranked choice election with one winner, the winning candidate doesn't just have to earn the most votes. The winner has to earn a majority of votes. If a candidate earns more than half the votes in the first round, then it only takes one round to find the winner. For example, in Arlington's recent County Board race, the winning candidate earned 58% of the first-choice votes, so the election only took one round.

But if no candidate earns at least half the first-choice votes, we hold an "instant runoff" to find the winner with majority support. In each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their supporters' votes are transferred to their next choice until we find the winner with broadest support. In the June primary for Arlington's County Board seat, there were five candidates, and it took all five rounds to find the winner.

Some offices – like Charlottesville City Council and Arlington County Board – have more than one winner per election. Ranked-choice elections with more than one winner are a lot like the single-winner version, but with two extra details: 1. The threshold for victory is lower. 2. We have to transfer 'surplus' votes if a candidate gets more votes than they need to win.

No. If a candidate gets enough votes in the first round, there's no need to use second choices to find the winner. Your other choices will only be used if more rounds are needed to find the winner. In Arlington's recent County Board race, the winning candidate earned 58% of the first-choice votes, so only one round was needed.

No. Come-from-behind victories are rare, but they do happen on occasion. Even if the first-round leader wins the election, ranked choice benefits voters by encouraging candidates to engage with more residents and build a winning coalition. 

With ranked choice ballots, you can vote for who you really like without fear of wasting your vote. If it turns out your favorite candidate can't win, you can still have a say in the final winner by ranking other candidates. You don't have to worry about accidentally helping the candidates you like least by voting for the person you like most.

Because RCV eliminates the fear that similar candidates will split a voting bloc, RCV encourages candidates to embrace what they have in common and draw distinctions based on substantive issues. Sometimes RCV candidates will even appear in joint campaign ads to help voters identify who shares their values. RCV encourages candidates to build coalitions and earn support from a wide range of voters.

Ranked choice is used in some of the most diverse cities in the country – New York City, Oakland, Sante Fe, Minneapolis – and has a proven record of increasing diversity among elected officials. In New York City, for example, RCV helped produce the first majority-female city council in NYC history. After RCV adoption, the 51-member NYC Council went from just 10 women to 31 women with 26 women of color.

Exit polls consistently show that the vast majority of voters report understanding ranked choice after just one use and support using RCV in future elections. Research also finds voters' self-reported understanding increases as communities use RCV year after year.

The main cost of RCV adoption is voter education. All of Virginia's 133 localities already have RCV-capable voting hardware, and the State Board of Elections has already purchased RCV software from the national RCV Resource Center.

In Virginia, yes, but that's a choice of the State Board of Elections and not a technical limitation of RCV. Virginia's current RCV regulations instruct localities to only report preliminary results for first-choice votes on election night. After absentee ballots are due on the Friday after the election, registrars are then free to produce complete round-by-round results. The national RCV Resource Center encourages administrators to release preliminary results for all rounds on election night, as well.

Virginia law currently allows localities to use RCV to elect their city council and county board members. RCV is not yet permitted in elections for state or federal office, except in party-run nominating contests, like conventions.

In 2023, Arlington became the first Virginia locality to conduct an RCV election. Charlottesville will become the second in June 2025. The Virginia Republican party has also used ranked-choice ballots at conventions to nominate candidates for statewide offices and Congressional districts VA-04, VA-10, and VA-11.

Alaska and Maine use RCV in all of their state and federal elections. In addition, more than 50 cities and counties use RCV in local elections, from big cities like New York City and Minneapolis to small towns in Utah, Colorado, and Vermont. In 2024, DC voters overwhelming supported a ballot measure to adopt RCV for their elections, too.