preferential voting

{{short description|Election systems}}

Preferential voting or preference voting (PV) may refer to different election systems or groups of election systems:

• Any electoral system that allows a voter to indicate multiple preferences where preferences marked are weighted or used as contingency votes (any system other than plurality or anti-plurality)
• Ranked voting methods, all election methods that involve ranking candidates in order of preference (American literature)
• Instant-runoff voting and single transferable vote, referred to as "preferential voting" in Australia by way of conflation
• Bucklin voting, similarly conflated during the Progressive Era
• Optional preferential voting
• Open list representation, a form of party-list proportional representation where "preference votes" are used to express preference for individual candidates instead of party lists.