Narrowing it down to one can lead to strategic thinking among some voters — like those who favor a lesser-known candidate, but end up voting for the person they think has a better chance of defeating their least favorite in the race.
For those voters whose first choice was struck, the tabulator then counts their second choices. The process keeps going until one candidate wins a majority.complicated, the current primary in D.C., advocates say, is a real-life example of why that system might work better. Before Williams decided to run against Bonds, he worked as an advocate for electoral changes like public campaign financing, which D.C. implemented before the last election and Williams is now using.Bonds, who has been on the council for a decade, faced two challengers in her last primary election and still won 52 percent of the vote, with the two other splitting the rest nearly equally.“I personally feel very strongly that it is a process to dilute parties,” Bonds said in a debate last month.
“There was definitely this pressure early on to drop out and let people who other folks thought maybe had a better chance to win the race, win the race,” Gore said. “We hear that a lot about splitting the vote. Ranked-choice voting would pretty much eliminate all of that.”As it stands, Gore said she does worry that she and the other two challengers will split the vote, giving Bonds the victory. “That’s what keeps me up at night,” she said.