Election Methods

Election methods are procedures used to determine winners in votes. Different methods include plurality (who gets the most votes wins), runoff (top candidates have additional rounds), and ranked-choice (voters rank candidates; if no one wins outright, the least popular are eliminated, and votes redistributed). Some methods aim to reflect broader preferences fairly, like approval voting (voters support all candidates they approve of) or proportional representation (seats are allocated based on vote shares). The choice of a method affects how accurately the election reflects voters’ preferences and can impact the overall fairness and legitimacy of the results.