During the debacle that was the 2020 Iowa Caucus, the candidate with the most number of votes failed to secure the most delegates. And in two of the past five presidential elections, the candidate with the most number of votes lost the election. 

Given these recent developments, it’s no wonder that Americans across the country are looking for ways to make our electoral process a little more democratic. Some state and local governments have found inspiration in a model used in other democracies called ranked-choice voting. The method, also known as instant-runoff voting (IRV), allows voters to rank candidates by preference on their ballots if they choose to, rather than simply voting for a single candidate. In an election with ranked-choice voting, if a candidate fails to secure a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. The process of elimination continues until a candidate has a clear majority. 

This collection explores three communities in the United States that have adopted ranked-choice voting, from San Francisco, the first U.S. city to implement the method, to Maine, where citizens liked the new system so much they voted to keep it and even went to court to save it. The collection also includes a story from Doña Ana County, New Mexico, where the county clerk included ranked-choice voting in a number of initiatives aimed at boosting civic engagement and voter turnout.