Ranked Pairs (RP), also known as the Tideman method, is a ranked voting method that determines a single winner from ballots that rank candidates in order of preference. The method is like a round-robin tournament in that it examines every possible pairing of one candidate against another.

The ballots are used to determine the winner in any race with just two candidates, based upon which of the two candidates is ranked higher on each ballot. If there is a candidate who wins regardless of whom they are paired against then that candidate is elected the winner. If there is no candidate who wins every pairing then the pairings with a more decisive win dominate those that are less decisive. For example, if Paper beats Rock, Rock beats Scissors, and Scissors beats Paper; and it is the case that the first two wins are more decisive than the third, then the third is ignored and Paper is elected the winner by virtue of winning their remaining pairings.

This system of ranked voting was first proposed by Nicolaus Tideman in 1987. Unlike Instant Runoff Voting, Ranked Pairs is guaranteed to satisfy the Condorcet winner criterion, meaning that any candidate who beats every other candidate, in a one-on-one race between the two, will be elected the winner.

The ranked pairs procedure is as follows:

At the end of this procedure, all cycles will be eliminated, leaving a unique winner who wins all of their remaining one-on-one pairings. The lack of cycles means that candidates can be ranked directly based on the pairings that have been left behind.

Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital. The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are:

The preferences of each region's voters are:

The results are tabulated as follows: