Single transferable vote

Hey kiddo! So, have you ever had a really hard time choosing between your favorite toys when your friends come over to play? That's kind of like what happens when grown-ups vote in elections.

Sometimes, there are lots of people running for the same job or position, and it can be hard to make a decision. That's where something called the single transferable vote comes in.

Basically, instead of just picking one person to vote for, people get to rank all the candidates in order of preference. So, if there are five people running for mayor, you could put the person you like the most as your first choice, the person you like the second-most as your second choice, and so on.

Here's where it gets a little tricky. In a regular election, the person with the most votes wins the whole thing, even if only 25% of the voters actually voted for them. But with the single transferable vote, things work differently.

First, they count up all the first-choice votes. If someone gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, they win, just like in a regular election. But if no one gets more than 50%, they start eliminating the person with the least votes and transferring those votes to the candidates that those voters ranked as their next choice.

This keeps happening until someone gets more than 50% of the votes, and they're declared the winner. This way, everyone's voice is heard and counted, even if their first choice doesn't win.

So, that's the single transferable vote! It's a way of making sure everyone's opinions are taken into account, and that the person who wins really does have the support of most voters. Pretty cool, huh?