How to count single seat office elections

The counting procedures work differently under a ranked choice voting election. A hand count will be required in all races to obtain the official results.

The process for counting a single seat office, like mayor, is slightly different from how a multi-seat office, like park board at large, is counted.

Counting single seat office elections
(Mayor, City Council Members, and Park Board District Commissioners)

All the ballots are sorted and counted, and the first choice votes are tallied. If no candidate receives the required number of votes to win, the winner is selected through a series of rounds. First, candidates who received the lowest number of votes are eliminated. Next, voters who cast votes for eliminated candidates will have their votes redistributed to their next choice.

For single seat offices, a candidate who receives 50% of the vote plus one vote is elected. If there are only two candidates left and neither has 50% plus one, the candidate with the most votes is elected.

In a race where 3,000 votes are cast, the winning threshold is 1,501 votes (3000/2 + 1 vote)

Round 1: The total first choice votes are counted and none of the candidates have received a majority of the votes cast.

Round 2: Since no candidate reached the threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and votes for this candidate are redistributed based on the voters’ second choices. That means that candidate Wirth is eliminated and 250 of his votes are redistributed to candidate Matthews and another 250 to candidate North Commons. Again, none of the candidates have received a majority of votes, and we move to the next round.

Round 3: Candidate Matthews has the fewest number of votes and is eliminated. All 950 of candidate Matthews’ votes are redistributed to the next choice on those ballots, candidate North Commons. Now candidate North Commons has received a majority of votes cast and is the winner.