From Naming Our Dog to Making Better Decisions: Ranked Choice Voting Belongs in Everyday Life

Ranked-choice voting helps families, businesses, cities, and countries make better decisions by giving people more ways to express their preferences.

There are two challenges to bringing a new dog into your life: choosing the right dog and picking a name. If your family is like ours, everyone has their own favorite names and compromise seems out of reach. For example, I wanted "Coco" or "Loki". My daughter liked Loki, but almost everyone hated Coco.

If you’ve ever tried to get a group of people to agree on a name, you know it can be "adventurous"! Everyone has their own ideas, favorites, and reasons why their choice is the best. We could have gone with a traditional vote, where everyone picked their favorite and the name with the most votes won. But what about the people whose favorite name didn’t win? Would they accept the name? Would they accept the dog with that name?

Instead, we decided to try something different. We used ranked choice voting (RCV) to choose our dog’s name. And guess what? It worked beautifully. Everyone was satisfied with the name we chose!

How Ranked Choice Voting Made a Difference

Ranked choice voting lets each person rank their choices in order of preference rather than selecting just one favorite. If no option receives enough support in the first round, the option with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated, and those votes are transferred to the voters’ next available choices. This process continues until a winner emerges.

In our family’s case, we came up with a list of 20 names that everyone agreed to vote on. Then we independently ranked our choices using rcv123.org. Instead of feeling limited to one option, we could consider the preferences of everyone involved. Some of us ranked all 20, others ranked their top five. Turned out, my top choices achieved only two votes each, but in the end, everyone was happy. We reached a decision that the whole family could feel good about.

Our dog’s naming experience reminded me that ranked choice voting isn’t just an interesting way to run an election. It’s also a practical tool for making decisions, encouraging participation, and helping people feel heard.

Bring Ranked Choice Voting Into Family Life

Think about how many decisions families make together. What movie should we watch? Where should we go on vacation? What should we have for dinner? Which activity should we do this weekend? Sometimes, these seemingly simple questions can lead to long discussions or leave someone feeling disappointed. One person’s favorite wins, while everyone else has to go along with it.

When there are several good options and everyone has an opinion, ranking choices can make the conversation more inclusive and productive. It also teaches children valuable lessons about listening, compromise, and respecting different perspectives. They learn that their first choice might not always win, but their other preferences still matter.

RCV Can Make Workplaces More Collaborative, Too

The same idea works at the office, where group decisions are just as hard to get right. Teams regularly make group decisions: selecting a project to prioritize, choosing a meeting time, deciding on a team-building activity, or gathering input on new ideas. In these situations, the loudest voice or the most popular first choice can overshadow other worthwhile options.

With RCV, team members can rank their preferences and contribute to a decision that reflects a wider range of opinions. For example, suppose a team is choosing among five ideas for its next major project. Each employee can rank the ideas in order of preference. If a less popular idea receives the fewest first-choice votes, those votes can transfer to the next preferred option. The final result may reveal which idea has the broadest overall support.

This doesn't mean RCV will solve every workplace disagreement. Some decisions are best made by managers, experts, or people with specific responsibilities. But when a team wants to make a shared decision, ranked choice voting provides a fair, structured way to hear from everyone.

It shifts the conversation from “How do we get our choice to win?” to “Which option can we all support?”

In civic life, community organizations, workplaces, and even families, people want to know that their opinions count. They may not get their first choice every time, but being invited to share their preferences can make a difference in how they experience the final decision.

Let's Keep Practicing Ranked Choice Voting

You don't have to wait for an election to try ranked choice voting. The next time your family, friends, or coworkers need to choose among several options, invite everyone to rank their favorites. You'll discover that the process makes it easier to hear different perspectives and find an option that people can support. Try it when choosing a restaurant with friends, planning a family outing, organizing a team event, or deciding among several ideas for a community project. Let everyone rank their favorites and see whether the process helps you find an option with broad support.

As for our family, we have a new dog, a name we're happy with, and a fun reminder that there can be more than one way to make a group decision. Who knew naming a dog could offer such a good lesson in democracy? Next time your family or workplace has a decision to make, give ranked choice voting a try. You might be surprised by how much easier it is to find common ground when everyone gets to rank what matters to them.

And by the way, our new Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier is named Cooper.

Here's an easy-to-use ranked choice voting tool for holding your own RCV elections. Works with all devices: RCV123