Coombs' Method - An Example

An Example

Imagine that Tennessee is having an election on the location of its capital. The population of Tennessee is concentrated around its four major cities, which are spread throughout the state. For this example, suppose that the entire electorate lives in these four cities and that everyone wants to live as near to the capital as possible.

The candidates for the capital are:

• Memphis, the state's largest city, with 42% of the voters, but located far from the other cities
• Nashville, with 26% of the voters, near the center of the state
• Knoxville, with 17% of the voters
• Chattanooga, with 15% of the voters

The preferences of the voters would be divided like this:

Assuming all of the voters vote sincerely (strategic voting is discussed below), the results would be as follows, by percentage:

• In the first round, no candidate has an absolute majority of first place votes (51).
• Memphis, having the most last place votes (26+15+17=58), is therefore eliminated.
• In the second round, Memphis is out of the running, and so must be factored out. Memphis was ranked first on Group A's ballots, so the second choice of Group A, Nashville, gets an additional 42 first place votes, giving it an absolute majority of first place votes (68 versus 15+17=32) thus making it the winner. Note that the last place votes are disregarded in the final round.