What to do when in Coombs voting method there two equal weights for candidates to be elimenated?

Question

I've read about Coombs method on Wikipedia.

I understand that we eliminate candidate with the most last-place votes. But what do we do when, for example, two candidates A and B have equal number of last-place votes?

Which one should be chosen to eliminate?

Answer 1

I can't find if Clyde Coombs himself suggested a tiebreaker method, but some possibilities are:

• Eliminate both of the tied-for-last candidates.
• Flip a coin (or use some other source of randomness) to determine which of the tied candidates to eliminate.
• Eliminate the candidate with the most second-to-last place votes (and if that's also tied, use the most third-to-last place votes, etc.)
• Fork the vote counting, with one branch eliminating candidate X, ultimately electing winner A; and the other eliminating candidate Y, ultimately electing winner B. If candidates A and B happen to be the same person, then that's your final winner. Otherwise, elect the winner of a head-to-head A-B race.