A Fairer, More Representative
Way to Elect Our Leaders.
Top Three expands choice. Head-to-head matchups make elections fairer by treating every voter and candidate equally.
Every voter deserves an equal say in choosing leaders and in shaping who has governing power. Election rules that silence some voters weaken legitimacy and deepen mistrust.
Benefits:
More choice on the ballot.
Every voter gets an equal say in every head-to-head matchup.
Top Three establishes fairness for the 71% of Ohioans who are registered as unaffiliated voters and currently do not get a say in who will be the candidates on their ballot in November.
Head-to-head matchups treat candidates equally: each matchup is worth the same, so all candidates compete on a level playing field.
Head-to-head matchups incentivize different kinds of candidates to run and changes how they campaign, encouraging bridge-building and discouraging tactics that ignore large blocs of voters.
Transparent counting mechanisms with clear and verifiable results.
Results known in a similar timeline to current vote counting, no delays that could occur with other voting methods.
Mitigates risks of spoilers.
HOW TOP 3 + HEAD-TO-HEAD WORKS
All Ohio voters, unaffiliated or party-affiliated, are eligible to vote in a primary election that includes all the candidates. Voters choose one candidate. The top three vote-getters advance to the general election. The general election could feature more than one candidate from each of the major parties.
Step 1: All candidates compete in an all-voter primary election.
Step 2: Voters choose who they prefer in each matchup.
In the general election, voters express a preference in each of the head-to-head comparisons of candidates.
Step 3: Votes are tallied and candidates are compared head-to-head.
Once all ballots have been cast, candidates are compared in head-to-head matchups, in a manner similar to a round-robin sports tournament. Head-to-Head Voting asks:
If it were just Ana vs. Bob, who would win?
If it were just Carla vs. Ana who would win?
If it were just Carla vs. Bob who would win?
The voter’s ballots are used to determine the winner of each head-to-head matchup.
The winning candidate is the candidate who defeats every other candidate head-to-head. This ensures that election winner is the candidate who best and most fairly reflects the voters’ choices.
For example, if Carla wins her matchups against Ana and Bob, then Carla is the winner. No matter who she is compared against, a majority of voters prefer her—making her the Consensus Choice.
In the extremely rare case that every candidate loses to another candidate, the winner is the candidate with the smallest loss.
Step 4: The candidate who defeats every other candidate wins the election.
