Consensus Choice Voting Explained: How Ballots Are Counted

In a new video, Professor Eric Pacuit from the University of Maryland breaks down how Consensus Choice Voting works step-by-step.

Consensus Choice Voting treats elections like a round-robin tournament—where every candidate competes directly against every other candidate, one-on-one. Voters don't just pick a single favorite; they rank the candidates from most preferred to least preferred.

Each "matchup" between candidates is scored based on voters' rankings. For example, if a voter ranks Bob above Ann, Bob wins that head-to-head contest on that ballot.

After all ballots are collected, the scores from all voters are combined to determine who wins each matchup. The Consensus Choice is the candidate who wins against every other candidate in one-on-one comparisons.