Passing on the "surplus" votes and excluding the weakest candidates goes on until the needed number of candidates has been elected.

If you followed the hustings closely it was quite clear he was the weakest candidate (save Abbott).

Contrast this with a less sophisticated selection algorithm, such as truncation selection, which will eliminate a fixed percentage of the weakest candidates.

Mencken said the convention had nominated "the weakest candidate."

In elimination runoff elections, the weakest candidate(s) are eliminated until there is a majority.

So is Khatami the strongest or the weakest candidate the reformists could run in 2009?

This summary combines elimination of the weakest 7 candidates after the first round.

Their rules eliminated one weakest candidate at a time, or all candidates in a tie at the bottom.

Voters who have given their highest preferences to the weakest candidates are allowed to participate, perhaps decisively, in the contest between the strongest.

Mencken wrote that Franklin Roosevelt was "the weakest candidate" at the Democratic convention of 1932.