Ranked-choice voting: put the options in order
A plain vote only tells you what each person likes most. A ranking also tells you what they would accept next, and that often finds an option the whole group can live with. In PollIt each person drags the options into order, and the result is counted by several well-known methods at once.
How it works
- Add the options: candidates, project ideas, destinations for a trip, names for a product. Pictures are allowed.
- Choose the counting method shown first, and whether everyone must rank every option or only their top few.
- Share the link. Each person drags the options into their order of preference, on a computer or a phone.
- The results show the winner under the chosen method, with the other methods next to it for comparison.
How the result is counted
All four methods are calculated for every poll; you choose which one is shown first.
- Borda count
- Points by place. With five options, a first place earns 4 points, a second place 3, and so on down to 0 for the last. The option with the most points wins. Borda rewards options that many people rank high, even if few put them first.
- Instant runoff
- Also called ranked-choice voting or the alternative vote. First places are counted; if no option has more than half of them, the weakest drops out and its voters' next choices count instead. This repeats until one option has a majority. PollIt shows every round, so you can follow how the winner was found.
- Condorcet / Schulze
- Every pair of options is compared head to head: how many people put A above B, and how many B above A. An option that beats every other one is the Condorcet winner. When there is none (A beats B, B beats C and C beats A), the Schulze method settles it by the strongest chains of head-to-head wins. PollIt shows the full table of pairwise results.
- Average place
- The simplest summary: the mean position of each option across all ballots.
Options that someone leaves unranked count as below all the ones they ranked. A tie in instant runoff is broken by Borda points.
Which method should I choose?
To elect one winner from several candidates, instant runoff is the most widely used. If you want the option that wins the most head-to-head comparisons, choose Condorcet / Schulze. For a priority list or a consensus where every place matters, the Borda count works well. If you are unsure, look at all of them: when they agree, the result is clear.
A secret ballot when it matters
For an election in a club or an association, start from the Ranked-choice election template: anonymous answers, results hidden until the poll closes, one vote per personal invitation, and votes that cannot be changed once they are sent.
Good for
Electing a board or a chair, choosing a name or a logo, ordering a backlog, picking a holiday destination, or setting the programme of an event. The Rank priorities template is a quick start for teams. For scores instead of an order, use a rating poll.
Start from a template
Create a ranking poll
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