1. (a) Any federal election not held on the date of a regularly scheduled primary or general election and any special election for a vacant seat on a county council shall be conducted by ranked-choice voting.

2. (b) Except as provided in subsections (c) and (d), the following procedures shall be used to determine the winner of an election conducted by ranked-choice voting:

   1. (1) Tabulation of votes shall proceed in rounds;
   2. (2) In each round, the number of votes for each continuing candidate shall be counted, with each continuing ballot counting as one vote for its highest-ranked continuing candidate for that round;
   3. (3) Inactive ballots shall not be counted for any continuing candidate; and

   4. (4) The round shall end with one of two potential outcomes:

      1. (A) If there are two or fewer continuing candidates, the candidate with the most votes shall be declared the winner of the election; or
      2. (B) If there are more than two continuing candidates, the last-place candidate shall be defeated and a new round shall begin.

3. (c) A tie under this section between candidates for the most votes in the final round or a tie between last-place candidates in any round shall be decided by lot, and the candidate chosen by lot shall be:

   1. (1) Declared the winner if the tie is between candidates for the most votes in the final round; or
   2. (2) Defeated if the tie is between last-place candidates in any round.

4. (d) The office of elections may modify a ranked-choice voting ballot and tabulation; provided that:

   1. (1) The number of allowable rankings shall be limited to no fewer than six candidates; and
   2. (2) Two or more candidates may be defeated simultaneously by batch elimination in any round of tabulation.

5. (e) For the purposes of this section:

   "Batch elimination" means the simultaneous defeat of multiple candidates for whom it is mathematically impossible to be elected.

   "Continuing ballot" means a ballot that is not an inactive ballot.

   "Continuing candidate" means a candidate who has not been defeated.

   "Highest continuing ranking" means the highest ranking on a voter's ballot for a continuing candidate.

   "Inactive ballot" means a ballot that does not rank any continuing candidate, contains an overvote at the highest continuing ranking, or contains two or more sequential skipped rankings before its highest continuing ranking.

   "Last-place candidate" means the candidate with the fewest votes in a round of ranked-choice voting tabulation.

   "Mathematically impossible to be elected", with respect to a candidate, means that:

   1. (1) The candidate cannot be elected because the candidate's vote total in a round of the ranked-choice voting tabulation, plus all votes that could possibly be transferred to the candidate in future rounds from candidates with an equal or lower number of votes, would not be enough to surpass the candidate with the next-higher vote total in the round; or

   2. (2) The candidate has a lower vote total than a candidate described in paragraph (1).

      "Overvote" means a circumstance in which a voter has ranked more than one candidate at the same ranking on a ballot.

      "Ranked-choice voting" means the method of casting and tabulating votes in which voters rank candidates in order of preference, tabulation proceeds in sequential rounds in which last-place candidates are defeated, and the candidate with the most votes in the final round is elected.

      "Ranking" means the number assigned on a ballot by a voter to a candidate to express the voter's preference for that candidate, in which the lowest number is the highest ranking, and the highest number is the lowest ranking.

      "Round" means an instance of the sequence of voting tabulation steps established in subsection (b).

      "Skipped ranking" means a circumstance in which a voter has left a ranking blank and ranks a candidate at a subsequent ranking.

[L 2022, c 47, §2]