How is the election winner determined?

To determine the winner of the general election, compare each pair of candidates by counting the number of voters who prefer one over the other. The candidate preferred by more voters in a given head-to-head matchup wins that matchup. We call the candidate who wins all head-to-head matchups the Consensus Choice because they represent an acceptable compromise between different voters’ preferences.

In almost all large-scale elections, the process of comparing candidates head-to-head will identify the Consensus Choice, a single candidate who wins all their head-to-head matchups.

In the extremely rare case that every candidate loses to another candidate, the winner is the candidate who lost by the smallest amount.