First-preference votes

Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results A first-preference is a voter's most-preferred candidate.

[1][2][3][4] In certain ranked systems such as first preference plurality, ranked-choice voting (RCV), and the single transferable vote, first preferences for a candidate are considered most important and prioritized heavily.

This incentivizes pandering to the political base or "core support" as a result of the center squeeze effect.

Methods like anti-plurality voting and Coombs' method have the opposite effect, being dominated by a voter's bottom rankings and so tending to elect the "least offensive" candidates.

[4][5][6] The term is much-used in Australian politics, where ranked voting has been universal at federal, state, and local levels since the 1920s.