Voting and Counting
In an election held using the contingent vote the voters rank the list of candidates in order of preference. Under the most common ballot layout, they place a '1' beside their most preferred candidate, a '2' beside their second most preferred, and so on. In this respect the contingent vote is the same as instant-runoff voting.
There are then a maximum of two rounds of counting. In the first round only first preferences are counted. If a candidate has received an absolute majority of first preferences (i.e. more than half) then he is immediately declared the winner. However if no candidate has an absolute majority then all but the two candidates with the most first preferences are eliminated, and there is a second round. In the second round the votes of the voters whose first preference had been eliminated are transferred to whichever of the two remaining candidates were ranked the highest. The votes are then counted and whichever candidate has an absolute majority is declared elected.
Read more about this topic: Contingent Vote
Famous quotes containing the words voting and/or counting:
“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)