Currently, when we vote, we have one vote for one option regardless of the number of qualified candidates. We should be able to rank the candidates so that if our first preference ends up with the least votes, our vote can then go to our next choice until one candidate has more than 50% of the votes.
This would allow us to vote for a better independent candidate without ultimately taking a vote away from our preferred party if our first choice doesn't get enough votes to win.
Other countries like Australia do this successfully and it brings many better options into every level of government.