Austin made history over the weekend as it became the first city in Texas to adopt the use of ranked choice voting during a special election on May 1. Nearly 60% of city voters approved its use in future city elections.
Proposition E in Austin allows city voters to rank candidates in order of preference (i.e. Choice 1, Choice 2, Choice 3, etc.) up to 5 candidates in city council and mayoral elections. If no candidate gets 50% of first choice votes, the last place candidate is eliminated and their voters’ second choices are applied to the results.