Why we need "ranked choice voting"

Four candidates ran in the Pennsylvania 7th Congressional District primary yesterday.  Bob Brooks won, but not with a majority.  In fact, well over half of the Democratic voters preferred one of the other three candidates.  This means that Brooks is entering the November contest from a weak position.  

This is where Ranked Choice Voting would be helpful.  The voter ranks the candidates in his or her order of preference.  Mine, for example, would have been Crosswell, McClure, Obando-Derstine, with Brooks last.  Then you count the votes.  No candidate had a majority.  So then you take the candidate in last place (yesterday it was Obando-Derstine) and redistribute her voters’ second choices.  If no candidate has no majority, you do it again with the next lowest candidate until you reach the 50% threshold.  

You can also do a runoff, but ranked choice voting tends to make elections less nasty.