United States

The cities listed below have held at least one ranked choice voting (RCV) election (e.g., instant runoff voting or the single transferable vote) and still use RCV for elections. Not included are cities that previously held RCV elections but later repealed RCV, or cities that have approved RCV for use but have not yet held an RCV election.

Berkeley, California

Berkeley has used instant runoff voting (under the name ranked-choice voting) since 2010 (statute). Elections using instant runoff voting include city council and auditor. Berkeley has put the ballots online:

Burlington, Vermont (repealed 2010)

Burlington, Vermont has used instant runoff voting to elect its mayor since 2006. So far there have been two IRV elections, taking place in 2006 and 2009. Burlington has detailed information about its elections here.

Section 5(b) of Title II of the city charter provides guidelines for implementing IRV, and allows the city council to pass regulations consistent with the guidelines, but I have not found any such regulations online.

The ballots and official results are also available online:

One unusual aspect of Burlington's implementation of IRV is the way that it treats overvotes (when more than one candidate is given the same ranking). With most implementations of IRV (and STV), overvotes are not used in the count and effectively removed from the ballots before the start of the count. Burlington, however, will look at the overvotes during the count.

For example, consider a ballot where candidates A and B are both ranked second. Burlington considers the overvote at the time it is being processed. If both A and B are still in the running at this time, then it is treated as an overvote and ignored. If, however, one of A and B has already been eliminated at this time, then it is not treated as an overvote because there is only one candidate in the running.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts has used STV to elect its city council and school committee since 1941. The statute providing the counting rules is Chapter 54A of Massachusetts General Laws. Although this law was repealed by the legislature, any city implementing STV at that time was allowed to continue to do so. For a wealth of information on the Cambridge elections, see Robert Winter's website. In general terms, the following is the procedure for counting the votes:
  1. Allocate all votes to their first choices.
  2. Starting with the candidate with the greatest number of votes, transfer surplus votes to their next choices.
  3. Starting with the candidate with the fewest number of votes, eliminate all candidates with fewer than 50 votes and transfer those votes to their next choices.
  4. Eliminate the candidate with the fewest number of votes and transfer those votes to their next choices.
  5. Repeat step 4, until sufficient candidates have reached the winning threshold.
Note that § 16(b) allows Cambridge to use any method for transferring surplus votes that was in use in 1938, and Cambridge has chosen to use the Cincinnati method. The City of Cambridge describes the Cincinnati method as follows: The ballots of the candidate who has a surplus are numbered sequentially in the order in which they have been counted (that is, in the sequence dictated by the random draw of precincts) and then every nth ballot is drawn and transferred to a continuing candidate until the original candidate is credited with ballots equaling no more than quota. n is nearest whole number computed by the formula

n = Candidate's Total Ballots Surplus Ballots.

A ballot selected by this method that does not show a preference for a continuing candidate is skipped and remains with the original candidate. If not enough ballots are removed when ballots n, 2n, 3n, .... have been transferred, the sequence starts again with n+1, 2n+1, 3n+1, ....

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis held its first elections using the single transferable vote and instant runoff voting in 2009. Minneapolis describes both such elections as ranked-choice voting. The single transferable vote rules are the weighted inclusive Gregory method, which are similar to the rules used in Scotland.

The offices of mayor, city council members, and park board district commissioners are elected using instant runoff voting, and the offices of board of estimate and taxation at-large (two seats) and park board at-large (three seats) are elected using the single transferable vote.

The City of Minneapolis has a web page for ranked choice voting and the statute is online.

  • 2009 -- Minneapolis held 20 IRV elections and 2 STV elections. Results.

Oakland, California

Oakland has used instant runoff voting (under the name ranked-choice voting) since 2010 (statute). Elections using instant runoff voting include mayor, city council, auditor, and school director. Oakland has put the ballots online:

Pierce County, Washington

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San Francisco, California

San Francisco has used instant runoff voting (under the name ranked-choice voting) since 2004 (statute). Elections using instant runoff voting include board of supervisors, assessor recorder, treasurer, city attorney, mayor, district attorney, and sheriff. San Francisco has put the ballots online:

San Leandro, California

San Leandro has used instant runoff voting (under the name ranked-choice voting) since 2010 (statute). Elections using instant runoff voting include mayor and city council. San Leandro has put the ballots online:

Takoma Park, Maryland

Takoma Park, Maryland has used instant runoff voting to elect its mayor and city council since 2007. The first election was a special election to fill a vacancy in the city council in the spring of 2007, and afterward has been used for regularly scheduled elections. Article 6, section 606 of the city charter sets forth the requirements for instant runoff voting.