Open Primaries - Final Five - Ranked Choice Voting

This collection features our products with the theme of supporting Open Primaries—Final Five—Ranked Choice Voting. 

Open Primaries, Final Five—Ranked Choice Voting is designed to elect to office the candidate who represents the policy choices and will of the majority of voters. Its design helps us get the best-elected officials regardless of party affiliation, fosters more civil debate, and helps prevent extremists from any party from gaining office.

Thinking about this in tournament sports terms might help understand how it works.

First Round - Open Primaries

Open primaries are like the first round of a tournament season. Multiple teams (candidates) compete for the right to go to the championship tournament (fall election).

To qualify for the first round (primary), each candidate must be eligible for the ballot according to state election laws, such as acquiring sufficient signatures on a petition or meeting other state requirements.

The first round (primary candidates) consists of those who qualify to make the ballot regardless of party or non-party affiliation. Many candidates from each party and independents may compete for votes. Each voter gets to cast a vote for their favored candidate, regardless of party affiliation of either the voter or the candidate.

The top five vote-getters of the primary candidates representing various parties and ideals earn the opportunity to participate in the tournament (Fall Election). In tournament terms, the fall election is the Final Five Tournament.

Final Five Tournament - Fall Election

Think of this as a tournament in which you pick and rank your teams (and place and rank your vote). 

In the first round, if a candidate is the first choice of more than 50% of the votes cast, they win. However, if no candidate achieves more than 50% of the vote in the first round, we will go to the second round. 

The second round eliminates the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes from the tournament. Then, the picks (votes) of those that had that candidate chosen as the winner of the tournament (first choice) go to their second choice team (candidate)

The election is decided in the second round if a candidate wins over 50% of the votes (picks). If not, the candidate receiving the fewest picks (votes) is eliminated, and we move to the third round with three teams (candidates) still in the tournament. In this round, if your first or second-choice candidate has been eliminated, your vote (pick) moves to your third choice until one candidate scores more than 50% of the vote cast.

Rounds continue this way until one of the five wins by receiving the majority of the votes.