The contingent vote is an electoral system used to elect a single winner, in which the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. In an election, if no candidate receives an absolute majority of first preference votes, then all but the two leading candidates are eliminated and there is a second count. In the second count the votes of those who supported eliminated candidates are distributed among the two remaining candidates, so that one candidate achieves an absolute majority. The contingent vote is similar to the alternative vote but differs from it in that the alternative vote typically allows for many rounds of counting, whereas under the contingent vote there are never more than two. In the United States both the contingent vote and the alternative vote are often referred to a