Block preferential voting

Alternate ballot forms may have two groupings of marks, first giving n votes for an n seat election (as in traditional bloc voting), but also allowing the alternate candidates to be ranked in order of preference and used if one or more first choices are eliminated.

[1] With or without a preferential element, block voting systems have a number of features which can make them unrepresentative of the diversity of voters' intentions.

Block voting regularly produces complete landslide majorities for the group of candidates with the highest level of support.

In 2009, Aspen, Colorado also used a form of preferential block voting for a single election before repealing the system.

In 2018, the state of Utah passed a state law creating a pilot program for municipalities to use instant runoff voting for single seat contests and preferential block voting for multi seat contests, and in 2019, Payson, Utah and Vineyard, Utah each held preferential block voting contests for three and two city council seats respectively.