Ranked choice voting outperforms the winner-take-all system used to elect nearly every US politician

By: Ismar Volić, Wellesley College; Andy Schultz, Wellesley College, and David McCune, William Jewel College, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: December 2, 2025

Words: 1,098

Last Updated: 1 month, 1 week ago

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By Ismar Volić, Wellesley College; Andy Schultz, Wellesley College, and David McCune, William Jewel College

American democracy is straining under countless pressures, many of them rooted in structural problems that go back to the nation’s founding. Chief among them is the “pick one” plurality voting system – also called winner-take-all – used to elect nearly all of the 520,000 government officials in the United States.

In this system, voters select one candidate, and the …

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