Here's how ranked-choice voting works. When New York voters cast their ballots in the city’s primary elections this year, they’ll have the option of ranking five candidates instead of choosing just one. It’s called ranked-choice voting, and its advocates say it promises to improve democracy as we know it. In a traditional voting system, voters select just one candidate. With ranked-choice voting, they rank candidates in order of preference. With a traditional ballot, all the votes are added up,