Ranked voting, also known as ranked-choice voting or preferential voting, is any election voting system in which voters use a ranked (or preferential) ballot to select more than one candidate (or other alternative being voted on) and to rank these choices in a sequence on the ordinal scale of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. There are multiple ways in which the rankings can be counted to determine which candidate or candidates (or other outcome(s)) is or are elected (or adopted), and these different methods may produce different results from the same set of ballots. Ranked voting is different from cardinal voting, where candidates are independently rated, rather than ranked.