  The methods of single transferable vote (STV) and sequential ranked-choice
voting (RCV) are different methods for electing a set of winners in multiwinner
elections. STV is a classical voting method that has been widely used
internationally for many years. By contrast, sequential RCV has rarely been
used, and only recently has seen an increase in usage as several cities in Utah
have adopted the method to elect city council members. We use Monte Carlo
simulations and a large database of real-world ranked-choice elections to
investigate the behavior of sequential RCV by comparing it to STV. Our general
finding is that sequential RCV often produces different winner sets than STV.
Furthermore, sequential RCV is best understood as an excellence-based method
which will not produce proportional results, often at the expense of minority
interests.
