Pulling Together: Why Ranking the Whole Coalition Matters in Cambridge

Photo Credit: Delmas Lehman

Like a team of draft horses pulling a cultivator, ranked choice voting only works when everyone pulls together. One horse alone can’t break the soil in a very wide field that needs to be readied for planting; one vote alone can’t win an election.

When you see a team of draft horses cutting furrows through heavy soil, you understand something about strength in numbers. No single horse could do that work on its own. It takes a coordinated team, each one harnessed together, pulling in the same direction.

That’s a lot like Cambridge’s ranked choice voting system.

Just as every horse matters to keep the plow moving straight, every ranked vote matters to keep your coalition strong. If you only rank one or two favorites and stop there, you’re leaving part of the team unharnessed—and risk stalling before the work is done.

How Ranked Choice Voting Works

1. In the first round, any candidate who reaches the quota (about 10% of the vote) is elected. Surplus votes above the quota get passed down to the next-ranked candidates.
2. In each subsequent round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Their votes are redistributed to the next choice on those ballots.
3. The process continues until all seats are filled.​​

This means that if you don’t rank beyond your first or second choice, your ballot may stop working part way through. It’s like unhooking one of the horses mid-field—the rest have to strain harder, and the plow veers off course.
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One Example Conveys the Process Well: the 2023 Council Election 

Here’s what that looked like in the previous Cambridge City Council election. Don’t worry if the lines look complex—the key takeaway is simple: votes keep moving until enough candidates reach quota.

1. Councillor Siddiqui was elected right away in Round 1 (reaching the quota of 2,324) and passed down a SURPLUS of 1,300  votes, largely to her ABC coalition, ensuring the wins of many of these candidates.
2. Councillor Azeem, McGovern, Nolan, and others each reached quota in later rounds.
3. The last candidate in was Joan Pickett. See the purple line in the lower visual? This represents Joan Pickett who started far below quota, but thanks to voters ranking her further down in their lists, she made quota in Round 17 with the additional votes of others who dropped out before her. Ayesha Wilson won the same way (but with other votes in Round 17). Paul Toner won with still other pass-on votes a bit earlier in Round 15.

Without those extra rankings and votes, none of the candidates outside of Councillors Siddique and Azeeem likely would have been elected.

Some readers may want to study this visual (and others based on earlier years) closely.  You can do so in the Cambridge Review  HERE

Most others will not bother with the granular details. But the key take away is simple: pass on votes (your numbers 2,3,4,5,6,7 rankings) matter a lot in terms of how many candidates - particularly those who share similar or complementary visions for the city - get elected.

KEY TAKEAWAY: Notice how votes kept flowing?!
         
Joan Pickett started with only 932 first-choice votes—well below quota—but made it onto the Council thanks to voters who kept ranking further down their ballots. Without those extra rankings, she wouldn’t have been elected.

THE LESSON:

Ranked choice voting rewards teamwork and strategy. By ranking your entire coalition—every candidate who shares your priorities—you make sure your votes continue to work all the way through the count.

Just like a plow team, every member has to stay hitched in for the work to get done. Ranked choice voting is the same: fill out your ballot for the whole coalition to keep the plow moving straight.