The earliest mention of ranked voting can be traced back to the works of Ramon Llull in the late 13th century. His interpretations, however, are not universally clear, and he is often believed to have favored Copeland's method, which used a series of pairwise elections instead of ranked-choice ballots. His ideas eventually caught the attention of Nicholas of Cusa in the early 15th century, who appeared to develop independently what is now known as the Borda count method that utilizes ranked ballots. The writings of both Llull and Nicholas were lost, only to be rediscovered in the 20th century.
