Only 2,050 votes, or about 1.1%, stand in the way of Seattle adopting ranked-choice voting in a ballot measure that is still too close to call.

After more than 196,000 ballots were counted Thursday, votes against adopting a voting model change maintained a slight and narrowing lead over votes in favor of adopting a new primary voting system.

On Tuesday’s ballot, Seattle voters were asked to consider supporting “approval voting” (Proposition 1A), “ranked-choice” voting (Proposition 1B), or maintain the current system.

As of Thursday, 50.55% of voters voted against any change, barely maintaining a lead over the 49.45% who wanted to adopt a new primary model to allow voters to support multiple candidates. The gap has narrowed each day of counting, moving nearly half of a percentage point since initial returns.

Ranked choice maintains a clear lead over approval voting, with 75% versus 25% for approval voting, a lead that has widened slightly each day.

While approval voting is effectively off the table, whether ranked choice will prevail in Seattle hinges on the yes-or-no question.

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Ranked choice is a system used by several states and major cities — like New York and San Francisco — across the U.S. that allows voters to select multiple candidates and rank them in order of preference. 

Each voter’s top choice is then counted, and the candidate with the fewest top rankings is cut. That process repeats, scrapping the one with the fewest top choice for each round, until two candidates remain and proceed to the general election

Voters in Clark County and San Juan County appear to have rejected ranked choice this week.

The Seattle City Council added ranked choice to the ballot this summer as an alternative to the signature-driven proposition for approval, a far newer system which allows voters to select multiple candidates, all weighted equally.

If the “no” votes prevail, the city’s current primary system — in which each voter selects a single candidate on the ballot and the top two vote earners move to the general election — remains in place.