especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more .... law uses "instant runoff" to de
Instant-runoff voting
Instant-runoff voting Instant runoff voting (IRV) is the American English term for a voting system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference, most commonly in single-winner elections. Indeed, IRV can be considered a special case of single transferable vote for the case where there is a single position to be filled. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate's ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next ranking on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated. The term "instant runoff" is used because the method is said to simulate a series of runoff elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election.[1] In the contingent vote form of IRV, all but the top vote-getters are eliminated before the instant runoff. Example Instant-runoff voting ballot Instant runoff voting is sometimes referred to as alternative voting or the Alternative Vote (AV) (its oldest name) in the United Kingdom, the preferential ballot or preferential voting in Canada and Australia, and ranked choice voting in the United States. It is also, more rarely, called Ware's method, after its inventor W. R. Ware.
Instant runoff voting is used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives,[2] the President of Ireland,[3] the national parliament of Papua New Guinea, and the Fijian House of Representatives.[4] IRV is employed by several jurisdictions in the United States, including San Francisco and Oakland in California and Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota.[5] It is used to elect the leaders of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in a national primary[6] and in the elections of city mayors in a number of countries including the United Kingdom[7] and New Zealand.[8] Many large private associations use IRV[9] , including the Hugo Awards for science fiction[10] and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in selection of best picture starting in 2010.[11] Robert's Rules of Order calls preferential voting especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot. . . . In such cases it makes possible a more representative result than that under a rule that a plurality shall elect. . . . Preferential voting has many variations. [Instant runoff voting is the example given.] ...Although this type of preferential ballot is preferable to an election by plurality, it affords less freedom of choice than repeated balloting [the exhaustive ballot system], because it denies voters the opportunity of basing their second or lesser choices on the results of earlier ballots, and because the candidate in last place is automatically eliminated and may thus be prevented from becoming a compromise choice.[12]
1
Instant-runoff voting
History Instant runoff voting was invented in 1871 by American architect William Robert Ware[13] . He evidently based IRV on the single-winner outcome of the single transferable vote, originally developed by Carl Andrae and Thomas Hare.
Australia The first known use of IRV in a governmental election was in 1893 in an election for the colonial government of Queensland, in Australia.[14] The system used for this election was a special form known as the contingent vote. IRV in its true form was first used in 1908 in a State election in Western Australia. Instant-runoff voting is used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives.[2] The preferential system was introduced in 1918 after the Swan by-election, in response to the rise of the conservative Country Party, a party representing small farmers. The Country Party split the anti-Labor vote in conservative country areas, allowing Labor candidates to win on a minority vote. The conservative government of Billy Hughes introduced preferential voting as a means of allowing competition between the two conservative parties without putting seats at risk. It was first used at the Corangamite by-election on 14 December 1918.[15] [16] It had previously been introduced as a result of the work of Thomas Hare and Andrew Inglis Clark in the Tasmanian House of Assembly. Preferential voting has gradually extended to both upper and lower houses, in the federal, state and territory legislatures, and is also used in municipal elections, and most other kinds of elections as well, such as internal political party elections, trade union elections, church elections, elections to company boards and elections in voluntary bodies such as football clubs. Negotiations for disposition of preference recommendations to voters are taken very seriously by candidates because transferred preferences carry the same weight as primary votes.
Canada It was used in 2009 to elect the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in a national primary[6] and in 2004 was used to select Stephen Harper as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is also used to elect the Canadian Wheat Board [17] .
Ireland It is used to elect the President of Ireland.[3]
Papua New Guinea and Fiji Instant runoff voting is use to elect the national parliament of Papua New Guinea, and the Fijian House of Representatives.[4]
New Zealand It is used to elect some mayors in New Zealand, including in Wellington.[8]
United Kingdom It is used to elect the leaders of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom. The supplementary vote form of instant runoff voting is used to elect the mayor of London and other cities in the United Kingdom.[7] In September 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's commitment that his party would hold a national referendum on adoption of instant runoff voting for elections of House of Commons drew public support.[18] In February 2010, he announced that a referendum on changing the longstanding Westminster voting system could be held by the "end of October 2011" if the idea was approved by MPs.[19] On 9 February 2010, MPs supported by 365 votes to 187 an amendment to the Constitutional Reform Bill that would see the referendum held by October
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Instant-runoff voting 2011.[20] However, as a general election has to be held by June 2010, it is uncertain whether the bill will be passed into law before Parliament is dissolved.[20]
United States Since 2002, instant runoff voting has been adopted in several cities in the United States. As of February 2010, 79 elections have been held in eight counties, cities or towns: San Francisco, California; Burlington, Vermont; Takoma Park, Maryland; Cary, North Carolina; Hendersonville, North Carolina; Aspen, Colorado; Minneapolis, Minnesota;[5] and Pierce County, Washington.[21] Several other cities have approved it, but have not yet implemented it. Among them are the California cities of Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro, where IRV will be used in city elections for the first time in November 2010.[22] Saint Paul, Minnesota is scheduled to use IRV for first time in 2011 for city council elections, and Memphis, Tennessee to use IRV in its 2011 council elections. Not all jurisdictions have kept using IRV. Pierce County Washington repealed IRV by referendum in November 2009 [23] , and Burlington, Vermont repealed IRV in March 2010.[24] . The city council in Cary, North Carolina voted to participate in an IRV pilot program in 2007, but did not do so in 2009.[25] In 2009, voters in Aspen, Colorado narrowly rejected an advisory measure on whether to keep IRV, and its city council may place a binding vote on the ballot.[26] In 1976 IRV was repealed after one election in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[27] IRV has faced at least three legal challenges in the United States. A case brought against IRV in Minneapolis went to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which in June 2009 unanimously upheld the system.[28] A 1975 lawsuit brought against IRV in Ann Arbor, Michigan also was rejected.[29] In February 2010, a lawsuit was filed in San Francisco claiming that the city's current method of implementing IRV is unconstitutional because voters are limited to fewer rankings than the number of candidates.[30]
Non-governmental organizations The sequential elimination method used by IRV is described in Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th edition.[12] as an example of "preferential voting," a term covering "any of a number of voting methods by which, on a single ballot when there are more than two possible choices, the second or less-preferred choices of voters can be taken into account if no candidate or proposition attains a majority. While it is more complicated than other methods of voting in common use and is not a substitute for the normal procedure of repeated balloting until a majority is obtained, preferential voting is especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot. In such cases it makes possible a more representative result than under a rule that a plurality shall elect...."Preferential voting has many variations. One method is described ... by way of illustration."[31] And then the instant runoff voting method is detailed.[32] Robert's Rules continues: "The system of preferential voting just described should not be used in cases where it is possible to follow the normal procedure of repeated balloting until one candidate or proposition attains a majority. Although this type of preferential ballot is preferable to an election by plurality, it affords less freedom of choice than repeated balloting, because it denies voters the opportunity of basing their second or lesser choices on the results of earlier ballots, and because the candidate or proposition in last place is automatically eliminated and may thus be prevented from becoming a compromise choice."[33] Two other less widely-used books on parliamentary procedure take a similar stance, disapproving of plurality voting and describing preferential voting as an option, if authorized in the bylaws, when repeated balloting is impractical: The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure [34] and Riddick's Rules of Procedure[35] . Forms of instant runoff voting have been adopted by various private and non-profit associations, particularly in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. In August 2009, the Academy of Motion Pictures announced that its best picture "Oscar" will be elected by instant runoff voting in 2010.[11] The Producers Guild of America in September 2009 announced that it also would use IRV to select its best film award.[36] Other examples in the United States include the 160,000-member American Chemical Society, 150,000-member American
3
Instant-runoff voting
4
Psychological Association, 38,000-member American Psychiatric Association,100,000-member American Association of University Women and 56,000 member American Mensa. The American Political Science Association has long had the "alternative vote" in its constitution [37] for electing its national President-Elect by mail under certain conditions, although there has not been a contested election for APSA President since about 1970.[38] . Updated in March 2009, a list [39] of organizations with links to their bylaws is available at the advocacy organization FairVote. As of December 2009, at least 55 American college and university student governments have either adopted and actively use IRV, or approve and provide for its use in internal elections. A list [40] of such colleges and universities and examples of their contested elections with IRV is available at the advocacy organization FairVote.
Terminology In the United States, instant runoff voting is an umbrella term associated with ranked choice elections where there are rounds of counting designed to determine majority winners, low vote-getters are eliminated between rounds, and ballots count for the top-ranked candidate not yet eliminated. The term "instant runoff" is used because the method is said to simulate a series of runoff elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election [1] , except voters may not tactically change their votes between rounds. Instant runoff voting has a number of other names, often tied to countries where it is used. In the United States, most observers call it instant runoff voting because of its resemblance to runoff voting, but others use "ranked choice voting" because of the ballot type. It is sometimes referred to as alternative voting or the Alternative Vote (its oldest name) in the United Kingdom and the preferential ballot or preferential voting in Canada and Australia. It has occasionally been referred to as Ware's method, after its U.S. proponent, William Robert Ware. North Carolina law uses "instant runoff" to describe the contingent vote or "batch elimination" form of IRV in one-seat elections where there is a single second round of counting with the top two candidates advance to the runoff.[41] Election officials in Hendersonville (NC) use "instant runoff" to describe a multi-seat election system that attempts to simulate in a single round of voting their previous system of multi-seat runoffs.[42] State law in South Carolina[43] and Arkansas[44] use "instant runoff" to describe the practice of having certain categories of absentee voters cast ranked ballots before the first round of a runoff that then are counted in a runoff election. When the single transferable vote (STV) system is applied to a single-winner election it becomes the same as IRV. For this reason IRV is sometimes considered to be merely a special form of STV. However, because STV was designed for multi-seat constituencies, many scholars consider it to be a separate system from IRV, and that is the convention followed in this article. IRV is usually known simply as "STV" in New Zealand and Ireland, although the term Alternative Vote is also used in those countries. Multiseat variations of the IRV elimination process, such as Single Transferable Vote, have sometimes been labeled as instant runoff voting although they should be more accurately called preferential bloc voting, since in bloc voting, multiple votes are counted per ballot at the same time.
Election procedure In instant runoff voting, as with other ranked election methods, each voter ranks the list of candidates in order of preference. Under a common ballot layout, the voter marks a '1' beside the most preferred candidate, a '2' beside the second-most preferred, and so forth, using an 'ascending' system. optical scan IRV ballot
Instant-runoff voting
5
The fundamental mechanics of the process are the same regardless of how many candidates the voter ranks, and how many are left unsorted. In some implementations of IRV, the voter is allowed to rank as many or as few choices as they wish, while in other implementations the voter is required to rank either all of the candidates, or only a prescribed number of them. In the initial count, the first preferences of each voter are counted and used to order the candidates. Each first preference is counted as one vote for the appropriate candidate. If, once all the first preferences are counted, one candidate holds a majority of the votes, that candidate can be immediately declared the winner. Otherwise the candidate who holds the fewest first preferences is eliminated. If there is an exact tie for last place in numbers of votes, special tie-breaking rules are invoked to determine which candidate to eliminate. Some jurisdictions eliminate more than one lowest-ranking candidate simultaneously if their combined number of votes is fewer than the number of votes received by any of the remaining candidates. Once a candidate has been eliminated, all the ballots assigned to that candidate are flowchart for counting IRV Votes recounted and the second preference of each voter is used to reassign their vote to one of the remaining candidates. The total counts for the remaining candidates are updated and the candidates are reordered. Again if the top candidate attains a majority, that candidate is declared the winner, otherwise the bottom candidate is again eliminated and those votes reassigned; each ballot paper is reassigned to whichever remaining candidate is the most preferred by that voter. If a ballot has all its ranked candidates eliminated, it is 'exhausted' and it can no longer be counted towards any candidate. Eventually, one candidate must attain a majority of votes cast for continuing candidates and is declared the winner.
Handling ties Exact ties can happen in any election; although the odds remain very low when many votes are cast, the multiple rounds of counting used in IRV create opportunities for a tie at intermediary stages of the tally when it is being determined which candidate to eliminate next. If the total of all the combined votes of any grouping of the candidates with the fewest votes is fewer than the votes cast for the next weakest candidate, then all those bottom tier candidates can be eliminated simultaneously. This rule can be used in any elimination round, ties or not. If there is a tie for last place in the elimination process, various rules can be used to break it. All of these rules look at tallies in earlier rounds, or lower rankings and could be argued as treating ballots unequally, allowing some voters more influence than others. • In Australia, the candidate, from among those tied, with the fewest votes in the previous round is eliminated. If there is still a tie those counting votes then look back to the next most recent round and then, if necessary, to
Instant-runoff voting
6
further progressively earlier rounds until one candidate can be eliminated. • In Irish presidential elections, the candidate, from among those tied, with fewest first choices is eliminated. If this cannot break the tie, ballot-counters look forwards, first to find the tied candidate with fewest votes in the second round and then, if necessary, to the third, fourth and subsequent rounds. • In some private elections the method is to 'conditionally eliminate' candidates from the tie and recount to see if either (or any) can survive. Usually the full set will become eliminated in any order. • Runoff elimination ties can also be settled by counting how many ballots rank each of the two candidates higher, to see which would have won head to head. The only unarguably fair tie-breaker is to randomly eliminate one of the tied candidates. This rule is always used in a final round when there are only two candidates left. Other rules that may reduce the need for tie-breaking by simultaneously eliminating multiple weak candidates in the first round, those who are below a fixed threshold of votes, or by overall ranking. Such rules are defined before the election allowing voters to recognize the risk of immediate elimination and consider strategic compromise away from weak candidates. (The contingent vote is an example of such a rule, eliminating all candidates below top-two in the first round.)
Examples Candidate
Round 1
Round 2
Bob Kiss
3,809 (38.9%) 4,761 (48.6%)
Hinda Miller
3,106 (31.7%) 3,986 (40.7%)
Kevin Curley
2,609 (26.7%)
—
Other
254
(2.6%)
—
Exhausted ballots
10
(0.1%)
1,041 (10.5%)
Total
9,778 (100%) 9,778 (100%)
In 2006 the city of Burlington, Vermont held a mayoral election using instant runoff voting. Progressive Bob Kiss won in two rounds with 48.6% of the first round ballots, defeating Democrat Hinda Miller who achieved 40.7%. 10.6% of the ballots were exhausted before the final round, with those voters (largely backers of Republican Curley) offering no preference between the final two candidates, Miller and Kiss.[45] After the first round, Curley and all of the 'other' candidates were eliminated, as their combined vote (2,863) was less than Miller's and so it would be impossible for Curley to pull ahead of Miller, even if he gained every one of the votes from the 'other' candidates. The votes for these candidates were recounted and redistributed between Kiss and Miller; 1,031 of those votes did not express a preference for either remaining candidate, and so were exhausted. After the second round recount, Kiss was declared the winner as he had obtained a majority (54.4%) of the remaining unexhausted ballots.
Instant-runoff voting
7
Irish Presidential Election, 1990 Candidate
Round 1
Round 2
Mary Robinson
612,265
(38.9%)
817,830
(51.6%)
Brian Lenihan
694,484
(44.1%)
731,273
(46.2%)
Austin Currie
267,902
(17.0%)
Exhausted ballots
9,444
(0.6%)
Total
— 34,992
(2.2%)
1,584,095 (100%) 1,584,095 (100%)
The result of the Irish Presidential election in 1990 is a good example of how instant runoff voting can produce a different result than the simple first past the post system. The three candidates were Brian Lenihan of the traditionally dominant Fianna Fáil party, Austin Currie of the nation's second largest party, Fine Gael, and Mary Robinson of the Labour Party. After the first round, Lenihan had the largest share of the first choice rankings (and hence would have won a first-past-the-post vote), but no candidate attained the necessary majority. Currie was eliminated and his votes reassigned to the next choice ranked on each ballot; in this process, Robinson received over 80% of Currie's votes, being the second preference of the majority of his supporters, thereby overtaking Lenihan, securing majority support and becoming the seventh President of Ireland.
Ballots As seen above, voters in an IRV election rank candidates on a preferential ballot. IRV systems in use in different countries vary both as to ballot design and as to whether or not voters are obliged to provide a full list of preferences. In elections such as those for the President of Ireland and the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, voters are permitted to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish. This is known in Australia as Optional Preferential Voting. Under Optional Preferential Voting some voters may rank only the candidates of a single party, or of their most preferred parties. Some voters may 'bullet vote', expressing only a first choice. Allowing voters to rank only as many candidates as they wish grants them greater freedom but can also lead to some voters ranking so few candidates that their vote eventually becomes 'exhausted'–that is, at a certain point during the count it can no longer be counted for a continuing candidate and therefore loses an opportunity to influence the result. To prevent exhausted ballots, some IRV systems require or request that voters give a complete ordering of all of the candidates in an election - if a voter does not rank all candidates her ballot may be considered spoilt or an informal ballot. In Australia this variant is known as 'full preferential voting',[46] . However, when there is a large set of candidates this requirement may prove burdensome and can lead to "donkey voting" in which, where a voter has no strong opinions about his or her lower preferences, the voter simply chooses them at random or in top-to-bottom order. Partly to overcome these problems, in elections to the Australian House of Representatives many parties distribute 'how-to-vote' cards, recommending how to allocate preferences on the ballot paper. The common way to list candidates on a ballot paper is alphabetically or by random lot, a process whereby the order of the candidates published on the ballot paper is determined by lottery. In some cases candidates may also be grouped by party. Robson Rotation is a system where the order of candidates on the paper is randomly changed for each print run of the same election's ballot papers.
Instant-runoff voting
Voters Voters have the option to rank candidates in order of choice rather than mark a single candidate. By choosing not to rank all candidates, a voter's ballot may not be counted in the decisive round of counting. Only ballots ranking at least one of the finalists will be counted. Where preferential voting is used for the election of an assembly or council, parties and candidates often advise their supporters on how to use their lower preferences. As noted above, in Australia parties even issue 'how-to-vote' cards to the electorate before polling day, and Australia's requirement that voters must rank all candidates contributes to some voters using them. These kinds of recommendations can increase the influence of party leaderships and lead to a form of pre-election bargaining, in which smaller parties bid to have key planks of their platforms included in those of the major parties by means of 'preference deals'.
Counting methods A hand count is possible under IRV. Several nations count ballots by hand. This was the method used in the Cary, North Carolina pilot program in October 2007[47] (after initially counting first choices on optical scan equipment at the polls), and is used in most non-U.S. jurisdictions; however it is usually more time-consuming than a plurality count, and may need to occur over a number of rounds. In Australia, a simplified count is sent to a central location on the night with the actual ballot papers transported there, securely, for the final count. In Ireland's presidential race, there are several dozen counting centers around the nation. Each center reports its totals for each candidate and receives instructions from the central office about which candidate or candidates to eliminate in the next round of counting. IRV has been implemented in U.S. cities using optical scan voting systems, such as San Francisco, California and Burlington, Vermont.
Winner-take-all single-seat elections vs. legislative elections The intention of IRV is to find one candidate acceptable to a majority of voters. It is intended as an improvement on the 'First Past the Post' (plurality) voting system. Under 'First Past the Post' the candidate with most votes (a plurality) wins, even if they do not have a majority (more than half) of votes (unless election rules require a runoff under that condition). IRV is most suited to elections in which there can be only one winner, such as a mayor or governor. Legislative bodies, city councils or boards also often elect winners by dividing voters into geographic districts. Australia is the only nation with a long record of using IRV for the election of legislative bodies. IRV produces representation very similar to those produced by the plurality system, with a result similar to a two party system in parliament like those found in many countries that use plurality and two round systems. A significant difference is that a smaller third party, the National Party of Australia, can co-exist with its coalition partner the Liberal Party of Australia, and can compete against it without fear of losing seats to other parties due to vote splitting.[48] In the November 2007 elections, at least four candidates ran in every constituency, with an average of seven, but every constituency was won with an absolute majority of votes.[49] If IRV is used to elect a council or legislature it will not produce proportional representation (PR). This means that it is likely to lead to the representation of a small number of larger parties in an assembly, rather than a proliferation of small parties. Under a parliamentary system it is more likely to produce single party governments than are PR systems, which tend to produce coalition governments. While IRV is designed to ensure that each individual candidate elected is supported by a majority of those in his or her constituency, if used to elect an assembly it does not ensure this result on a national level. As in other non-PR systems the party or coalition that wins a majority of seats will often not have the support of an overall majority of voters across the nation.
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Instant-runoff voting Many election reformers do not advocate IRV for legislative bodies or city councils that are intended to represent both majorities and minorities (in appropriate proportions).[50] As with any winner-take-all election method, IRV can result in a shut-out of minority representation. Gerrymandering of single seat districts can also result in minorities gaining majority control of a legislative body, with IRV or any other winner-take-all election method. According to a 2007 Brookings Institution paper examining voting behavior in the United States, IRV can empower moderate voters. Presumably, this effect would result from combining the primary and general election into a single election that would have higher participation rates by moderates than typical primaries.[51] However, empirical evidence suggests that IRV does not always favor moderates. A 2006 study found that "Fiji's objective of ameliorating ethnic divisions by the adoption of [IRV] was not successful"; the moderate parties would have fared better under PR.[52]
IRV compared to Plurality or Two-Round Runoff voting Potential advantages of IRV Tactical voting In his book Collective Decisions and Voting Nicolaus Tideman uses real-world voting data to analyze all proposed election methods in terms of resistance to tactical voting, and states on page 194 that "the alternative vote [IRV] is quite resistant to strategy." Instant runoff voting reduces incentive for insincere voting by reducing the spoiler effect in cases where there are two major candidates and one or more minor candidates.[53] Under the common plurality ("first past the post") voting system, voters may have an incentive to vote insincerely for one of the two major candidates, instead of their true favorite, because a vote for the favorite is likely to be "wasted."[54] IRV can weaken the impact of pre-election polls on voter behavior Some single-winner voting systems provide voters with an incentive to compromise on a second or third choice whom polls show has a better chance of winning. This increases media power because voters since many voters may believe the polls or believe that other voters will. Instant runoff voting proponents believe with IRV voters will vote for their true first choice candidate because their vote still can count for their "lesser of evils" choice if their first choice is eliminated. Thus, the voters would not be as likely to change their rankings based on media polls. IRV can give independent voters more say in elections In many juristictions, independent voters may not vote in some or all major party primaries. This means they have little say in who is on the general ballot, and may not like any of the candidates. If IRV is used to eliminate primaries, and use just one poll, then independent voters would have just as much say as party affiliated voters. Usually allows one ballot to determine a majority winner Robert's Rules of Order calls preferential voting "especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot. . . . In such cases it makes possible a more representative result than that under a rule that a plurality shall elect. . . . Preferential voting has many variations." The single transferable vote technique used by IRV is the example given."[12] As for having a true majority, voters who do not rank all the candidates are similar to voters who stay home on election day when there is a two candidate race. Although this type of preferential ballot is preferable to an election by plurality, it affords less freedom of choice than repeated balloting, because it denies voters the opportunity of basing their second or lesser choices on the results of earlier ballots, and because the candidate in last place is automatically eliminated and may thus be prevented from becoming a compromise choice.
9
Instant-runoff voting Ranked choice ballots allow a simulated runoff process to eliminate candidates without asking voters again for their top remaining choice. The process logically must end in a majority winner (or a tie) when two final candidates remain, the winner having a majority of votes in the final round. Because IRV collects additional preferences beyond first, given the same number of candidates, IRV is more likely to find a majority than would be the case with a Plurality election. However, if there are exhausted ballots, not showing a preference between the two remaining candidates, that last round majority may still only be a plurality with respect to valid ballots cast in the election. There are two sources of this failure of incomplete ranking: 1. Some IRV implementations don't allow complete ranking, either due to voting machine limitations or other reasons; for example, in San Francisco, only three ranks are available on the ballot, whereas there may be over twenty candidates.[55] [56] 2. Some voters don't rank enough of the candidates to express a preference between the final two candidates, even if the ballot allows it. In both cases such ballots, with all choices eliminated, are considered exhausted and don't count for or against any remaining candidate, in most implementations of IRV.[57] While some critics may argue that exhausted votes may prevent a true majority winner, if this strict definition of "majority" is used as a criterion, it is note worthy that in most plurality elections at least up to the year 2009, a significant number of people eligible to vote did not show up to the polls, preventing a true "majority" winner. Incomplete ballots that are exhausted may be no worse to society than eligible voters who chose to stay home. In order to avoid this issue, in Australia it is generally required that voters rank all candidates, which, by definition, creates a majority winner, because ballots not ranking all candidates are considered spoiled and invalid, but this has not been proposed for the United States. In New South Wales and Queensland, however, Optional Preferential Voting has been introduced as a reform, thus finding no absolute majority becomes, once again, possible. Antony Green notes that "The exhaustion rate has approached 80% in some seats.... In summary, optional preferential voting almost always assists the party with the highest primary vote."[58] Cheaper to administer than a two-round runoff Because it does not require two separate votes, IRV can present cost savings relative to a two-round system. In some cases, a primary election can be avoided as well. After the initial cost of equipment, IRV can reduce costs of a second election (required in a two round system or nonpartisan primary).[59] Eliminates the so-called "spoiler" effect In plurality elections with three or more candidates, it is possible for every candidate to earn a minority of the vote. When that happens, the candidate or party earning the second-largest minority of the vote sometimes labels the election "spoiled", the rationale being that the votes actually earned by the third-place candidate would have been cast for the second-place candidate, if only third-party candidates were prohibited from participating in elections. IRV eliminates the spoiler effect. Under IRV, voters are not forced into choosing between the lesser of two evils and are able to cast runoff (second-choice) votes for as many candidates as they find acceptable. During each round of IRV vote tabulating, the candidate with the least number of votes is dropped and the second-choice votes on his ballots are allocated to the remaining candidates. If need be, the process continues until there are only two candidates remaining, at which point there isn't any "spoiler" candidate for the second-place candidate to blame. Using ranked preference ballots, more candidates can run without "spoiling" being a factor. In Australia's national elections in 2007, for example, the average number of candidates in a district was seven, and at least four candidates ran in every district. Every seat was won with a majority of the vote, including several where results would have been different under plurality voting.[60]
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Instant-runoff voting In the United States, IRV addressed the spoiler effect in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where IRV was implemented in 1975 after passing in a 1974 referendum. It resulted in election of the city's first African-American mayor, a Democrat, who won after trailing the Republican incumbent 49% to 40% in the first count of ballots, with remaining votes cast for the Human Rights Party. A new referendum to rescind the reform was then placed on the ballot for a special election, with low turnout, which reversed the reform.[61] Other election reformers point out that there are other single-winner voting systems which could reduce or eliminate the spoiler effect. Gives voters a wider range of choices Like the two round system, IRV tends to give voters a wider range of choice among candidates than plurality. More independent and third party candidates are likely to run because the spoiler problems are less severe.[62] The sequential method of IRV accommodates choices differently than runoff voting by not immediately reducing the field to two in the second round, as typically done in runoff elections like the French presidential election, 2002. Reduces voter inequality When jurisdictions hold two rounds of voting to fill a seat, as in a primary followed by a general election, it allows some voters the opportunity to vote twice for their chosen candidates. But supporters of candidates failing to advance from the first round may lack the incentive to vote for one of the advancing candidates and not vote in the final round. In addition, some voters may choose only to participate in the final round and find their choices limited by what other voters did in the first round. May reduce negative campaigning John Russo, Oakland City Attorney, argued in the Oakland Tribune that "Instant runoff voting is an antidote to the disease of negative campaigning, and the New York Times in a 2004 news article[63] highlighted how some San Francisco candidates were conducting their campaigns more cooperatively. Under the system, their candidates were less likely to engage in malicious campaigning because such tactics would risk alienating the voters who support 'attacked' candidates."[64] However, critics allege there is a lack of evidence that such an effect occurs as often as suggested.[65] No formal studies are known to have been conducted in the United States. Internationally, scholarship by Benjamin Reilly suggests instant runoff voting eases ethnic conflict in divided societies.[66] , and this feature was a leading argument for why Papua New Guinea adopted instant runoff voting.[67]
Potential disadvantages of IRV Plurality voting is good enough Plurality supporters point to the fact that most elections in the U.S. use plurality voting, and voters seem to accept plurality winners as legitimate, suggesting that, "If it ain't broke don't fix it." The fact that some revered leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln, did not receive a majority of the vote is sometimes mentioned. It can be claimed that the spoiler effect is not a weakness but a strength because it encourages and rewards like-minded candidates and voters to work together before the election. This encourages the formation of strong coalitions or parties, who attempt to best represent a collective position to the largest set of voters they can. Thus once an election is held, all compromising work has been completed and it's up to the voters to decide a first choice and accept the results as best. Writing in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Harold J. Jansen studied the Alternative Vote in Canada, concluding that "On balance, it differed little from the single member plurality system."[68]
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Instant-runoff voting Violates the one person one vote mandate Ann Arbor, Michigan, through a petition drive, implemented "preference voting" in 1974. The arguments given in letters to newspapers included "Gives minority candidate voters two votes." In the other direction, it was argued, "The same 'two vote privilege' is extended to supporters of losing candidates in primaries or where there are run-off elections."[69] This procedure went before the Michigan courts, and a ruling was issued in Stephenson vs. the Ann Arbor Board of City Canvassers in 1975. Majority Preferential Voting (or M.P.V., as it was called) was upheld as in compliance with the constitution. In his decision, Judge James Fleming wrote that Under the 'M.P.V. System', however, no one person or voter has more than one effective vote for one office. No voter's vote can be counted more than once for the same candidate. In the final analysis, no voter is given greater weight in his or her vote over the vote of another voter, although to understand this does require a conceptual understanding of how the effect of a 'M.P.V. System' is like that of a run-off election. The form of majority preferential voting employed in the City of Ann Arbor's election of its Mayor does not violate the one-man, one-vote mandate nor does it deprive anyone of equal protection rights under the Michigan or United States Constitutions.[70] Two years after voting to use Instant Runoff Voting to elect their Mayor, the voters of Ann Arbor voted to repeal IRV [71] . Increased distribution of election costs Pierce County, Washington election officials outlined costs of $3,291,340 to implement IRV for its elections in 2008, including for new software and equipment, voter education, testing, share of time of permanent staff, consultants and additional ballot printing and postage costs. All ballots cast at the precinct had to be counted by central scanners, with requirements for more staff time to check in, visually scan and tabulate ballots.[72] In 2009 the auditor [chief elections director of Washington counties] reported ongoing costs that are not always balanced by the costs of eliminating primaries for most county offices, as those primaries may be needed for other offices not elected by IRV.[73] . May increase the use of computer counting equipment Some opponents of IRV fear that its more complex ballot counting process will lead to fully computerized counting of more elections, and potentially more computer counting fraud.[74] IRV supporters attempt to answer these claims with recommended audit procedures.[75]
Compared to other reform alternatives Claimed advantages Greater track record / more politically viable IRV has been used for national elections for several decades in such nations as Australia and the Republic of Ireland, and forms of it have been adopted for other significant public elections such as London and Wellington, New Zealand. in 2010, the House of Commons in the United Kingdom voted 365 to 197 to hold a national referendum by October 2011 on adoption of IRV for its elections[76] . In the United States, a number of local jurisdictions have voted to replace two-round runoff or plurality voting elections, and recent presidential candidates Barack Obama, Howard Dean, John McCain and Dennis Kucinich have taken public positions in favor of IRV [77] . IRV also is widely used in major non-governmental elections.
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Instant-runoff voting Can exist with an ongoing two party system IRV can exist within a two-party system, with Australia being an example of a country with two parties that dominate seats even as many parties field candidates for office. This can be reassuring to major party leaders considering reform. Requires first-choice support Most alternatives can elect a candidate who is the first choice of no voters, as long as that candidate is considered better than average by most voters. With IRV, a voter has his or her vote count for only one candidate at a time. As a result, it requires a candidate to be a first choice of at least some voters to win. Seeking first choice support encourages candidates to take bolder positions then if litte first choice support were needed to win. Upholds the later-no-harm criterion Among the commonly discussed single winner methods, only IRV upholds the later-no-harm criterion. In other words, with IRV ranking a lesser-choice candidate never helps defeat a higher-choice candidate. Meeting this criteria makes it harder to elect a compromise candidate whose strength is defined by being the compromise choice of many voters, but it also makes it easier for voters to rank all candidates sincerely. It also greatly diminishes the likelihood of tactical voting strategies based on some voters withholding or distorting their true preferences in seeking an advantage over backers of other candidates who vote sincerely.
Claimed disadvantages Fails the monotonicity criterion Like all multi-round election methods that eliminate candidates between rounds of counting, IRV fails the monotonicity criterion. Monotonicity can be stated in two ways: (i) A candidate X should never be harmed [i.e., change from being a winner to a loser] if X is raised on some ballots without changing the orders of the other candidates. (ii) A candidate X should never be rewarded [i.e., change from being a loser to a winner] if X is lowered on some ballots without changing the orders of the other candidates. In certain scenarios that change which candidates advance to the next round of election, raising the rank of a winning candidate on some ballots counter-intuitively results in the winning candidate becoming a loser.[78] What fraction of possible (or likely) outcomes are non-monotonic under IRV is an unresolved question. A voting system that fails monotonicity is theoretically susceptible to tactical voting if candidates have precise information before an election about voter turnout and voters' full preferences. If a voter can harm a candidate X by raising X's ranking, then the voter has an incentive to dishonestly rank X higher if that voter wants X to lose. Similarly, if a voter can help a candidate X by lowering X's ranking, then the voter has an incentive to dishonestly rank X lower if that voter wants X to win. To pursue such a strategy, candidates would need to persuade the proper number of supporters to change their rankings, accepting the risks associated with being wrong voter turnout and voters' preferences. Austan-Smith and Banks argued, in 1991, that "monotonicity/nonmonotonicity in electoral systems is a nonissue."[79] It is not additional votes for a candidate that can cause defeat, but rather the change in relative support among other candidates resulting from a vote switch that changes which candidates are in the runoff. Simply adding new first-preferences for a candidate can never cause the candidate to lose—IRV is monotonic as far as additional votes are concerned.
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Instant-runoff voting IRV fails to challenge the lack of minority representation IRV does not address the fact that in legislative elections, having one representative elected by majority vote may leave many voters with a "representative" they oppose. Many backers of proportional representation voting methods in Canada [80] and the United Kingdom [81] do not support instant runoff voting for legislative elections. IRV fails the Condorcet criterion IRV can eliminate, and thus fail to select as winner, a Condorcet winner, i.e. a candidate preferred by a majority to each other candidate in the field (including the eventual winner under IRV). For example, in a three-candidate field suppose that 40% of voters have the ranking XYZ, another 40% have the reverse ZYX, and the remaining 20% have Y as first preference. Here Y is eliminated in the first round of the count, despite being preferred by a (different) majority to each of X and Z. And such a scenario is not fanciful: think of a centrist party which is the first preference of fewest voters but the second preference of many more on both sides. IRV advocates point out that the two other most commonly used methods for single winner elections (traditional runoff elections and plurality voting) are more likely than IRV to elect a non-Condorcet winner. Although there are few reported examples of IRV failing to elect the Condorcet winner in governmental elections, computer simulations show that IRV does not necessarily result in electing the Condorcet winner, and can behave erratically.[82] Failing the Condorcet criterion, like failing the monotonicity criterion, is also related to the resistance IRV and contingent vote have against strategic and tactical voting, by eliminating the possibility of the "burying" strategy.
Similar systems Runoff voting The term instant runoff voting is derived from the name of a class of voting systems called runoff voting. In runoff voting voters do not rank candidates in order of preference on a single ballot. Instead a similar effect is achieved by using multiple rounds of voting. The simplest form of runoff voting is the two round system. Under the two round system voters vote for only one candidate but, if no candidate receives an overall majority of votes, another round of voting is held from which all but the two candidates with most votes are excluded. Exhaustive ballot A closer system to IRV is the exhaustive ballot. In this system—one familiar to fans of the television show American Idol -- only one candidate is eliminated after each round, and many rounds of voting are used, rather than just two.[83] Because holding many rounds of voting on separate days is generally expensive, the exhaustive ballot is not used for large scale, public elections. Instant runoff voting is so named because it achieves a similar effect to runoff voting but it is necessary for voters to vote only once. The result can be found 'instantly' rather than after several separate votes. Two round systems Runoff voting differs from IRV in a number of ways. The two round system can produce different results due to the fact that it uses a different rule for eliminations, excluding typically all but two candidates after just one round, rather than gradually eliminating candidates over a series of rounds. However all forms of "delayed" runoff voting differ from IRV in that voters can change their preferences as they go along, using the results of each round to influence their decision. This is not possible in IRV, as participants vote only once, and this prohibits certain forms of tactical voting which can be prevalent in 'standard' runoff voting.
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Instant-runoff voting Contingent vote The contingent vote, also known as Top-two IRV, or batch-style, is the same as IRV except that all but the two candidates with most votes are eliminated after the first round; the count therefore only ever has two rounds. This differs from the 'two round' runoff voting system described above in that only one round of voting is conducted. The two rounds are only for counting and both take place after voting has finished. Two particular variants of the contingent vote differ from IRV in a further way. Under the forms of the contingent vote used in Sri Lanka, and the elections for Mayor of London in the United Kingdom, voters are not permitted to rank all of the candidates, but only a certain maximum number. Under the variant used in London, called the supplementary vote, voters are only permitted to express a Top-two IRV first and a second preference. Under the Sri Lankan form of the contingent vote voters are only permitted to rank three candidates. The supplementary vote is used for mayoral elections while the Sri Lankan contingent vote is used to elect the President of Sri Lanka. While superficially similar to "sequential elimination" forms of IRV, these contingent vote forms of IRV can produce different results. If, as occurs under all forms of the contingent vote, more than one candidate is excluded after the first count, a candidate might be eliminated who would have gone on to win the election under sequential elimination IRV. If voters are restricted to a maximum number of preferences then it is easier for their vote to become exhausted. This encourages voters to vote tactically, by giving at least one of their limited preferences to a candidate who is likely to win. Conversely, a practical benefit of the 'contingent vote' counting process is expediency and confidence in the result with only two rounds. Most apparent in smaller elections, like with fewer than 100 ballots among a dozen choices, confidence can be lost in a bottom-up elimination due to cumbersome ties on the bottom (or near ties affected by counting errors). Frequent and even multiple use of tie-breaking rules in one election will leave uncomfortable doubts over whether the winner might have changed if a recount was performed.
IRV in a larger runoff process IRV may also be used within a part of a larger runoff process: • In some jurisdictions where top two runoff is required if no candidate gets a majority, a provision has been implemented that allows absentee voters to cast a ranked ballot. In the short window between the first election and the runoff, there often is not enough time to deal with absentee voters. With a ranked ballot, the votes of overseas citizens can count even if their first choice does not make the runoff. Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Springfield (IL) all have implemented this form of instant runoff voting on ballots for military and overseas voters.[84] [85] • It can be used to automate a faster runoff elimination of weak candidates in early rounds of an exhaustive ballot runoff, with specific rules defined that can stop with process with two or more candidates remaining for further balloting. • It can support a higher winner threshold not guaranteed by a single balloting, (like 60%). In such cases a second balloting may be used to confirm the winner.[86] • Elections requiring a majority winner defined by the total number of ballots may not be achieved with a single IRV balloting due to exhausted ballots. In such cases a post-balloting process may be needed to determine a final winner.[87]
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Instant-runoff voting • Roberts Rules of Order, Newly Revised recommends preferential voting for elections by mail, giving the STV technique used by IRV as their example; however, the RRONR version still suggests a majority of votes cast to elect a winner. For in-person elections, they recommend repeated balloting until a candidate wins with an absolute majority of all voters. Repeated ballot allows voters in a new election to turn to a candidate as a compromise who may not have polled well in the initial election. The term "instant runoff voting" is often applied to all these variations, with the common feature being one-vote counted per ballot at a time, with rules defined to eliminate one or more candidates each round with the fewest votes and transfer uncovered votes for remaining candidates; however, the term implies replacement of runoff elections, and most IRV implementations do accordingly drop the majority election requirement.
Theoretical evaluation by voting system criteria Scholars of electoral systems often compare them using mathematically-defined voting system criteria, the value of some of which is controversial. Some of the criteria are considered by Arrow's Theorem and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, which assume that voters rank all candidates in a strict preference order, among other assumptions that do not hold for all methods. For methods such as IRV which use such ranked preferences, satisfying all of the criteria is impossible, because they are mutually exclusive. • IRV passes the majority criterion, the later-no-harm criterion, the mutual majority criterion, the resolvability criterion, the Condorcet loser criterion, and, if the right tie-breaker method is used, the independence of clones criterion. • IRV fails the monotonicity criterion, consistency criterion, the Condorcet criterion, the participation criterion, reversal symmetry, and the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion.[88]
See also • • • • • • • • • •
Alternative Vote Top-up, or Alternative Vote Plus (AV+) proposed by the Jenkins Commission (UK) Australian electoral system Ballot Access News for occasional related news in the United States Electoral systems of the Australian states and territories List of democracy and elections-related topics None of the above (NOTA) or Re-Open Nominations (RON) Preferential block voting - An instant runoff process for electing multiple seat elections. Table of voting systems by country Single transferable vote Contingency vote
External links IRV in practice Advantages and disadvantages of AV [89] from the ACE Project [90] Electoral Design Reference Materials A Handbook of Electoral System Design [91] from International IDEA [92] Australian Electoral Commission Web Site [93] Preferential Voting in Australia [94] from Australian Politics.com Pierce county chooses Instant Runoff Voting over party primary [95] Adopted charter amendment for county council • San Francisco Department of Elections on its IRV elections [96] • • • • •
• City of Burlington, Vermont on its IRV elections [97]
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Instant-runoff voting • --BBC: Would the alternative vote have changed history?, illustration of how the results of the last six general elections might have looked had the 'alternative vote' system been in place. [98] Demos and simulations • • • • •
Indaba.org -- Demo of an IRV Ballot, including the Visual Display of a Runoff [99] OpenSTV -- Open source software for computing IRV and STV [100] Favourite Futurama Character Poll [101] Voting System Visualizations [102]] - 2-dimensional plots of results of various systems. Simulation Of Various Voting Models for Close Elections [103] Opposition article by Brian Olson.
Advocacy organisations • Instant Runoff Voting [104] at FairVote • • • • •
• History of IRV [105] Political Reform Program [106] at New America Foundation League of Women Voters of Vermont [107] Tacoma-Pierce county League of Women Voters [108] "Ranked Choice Voting" instantrunoff.com [109], by the Midwest Democracy Center [110] History of Use in Ann Arbor [111]
• Roosevelt Institution 25 Ideas for Electoral Reform [112] Opposition positions • • • •
IRV page [113] at the Center for Range Voting Flaws in IRV compared to ranked pairs [114] Instant Runnoff Voting Report [115] Values and Risks Report by the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting Voting methods: tutorial and essays [116] by James Green-Armytage (for IRV, see e.g. 1 [117] 2 [118] 3 [119] 4 [120] 5 [121])
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Instant-runoff voting [19] http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ uk_politics/ 8492622. stm [20] "MPs back referendum on voting system" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ uk_politics/ 8505255. stm). BBC News. 9 February 2010. . Retrieved 10 February 2010. 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Brams, Mathematics and Democracy (2008), p. 21 [39] http:/ / fairvote. org/ ?page=1964 [40] http:/ / fairvote. org/ colleges-and-universities-using-instant-runoff-voting/ [41] S.L. 2006-192 (http:/ / www. ncleg. net/ enactedlegislation/ sessionlaws/ html/ 2005-2006/ sl2006-192. html) [42] CITIZEN-TIMES: Capital Letters - Post details: No instant runoff in Hendersonville (http:/ / blogs. citizen-times. com/ blogs/ index. php?blog=10& title=no_instant_runoff_in_hendersonville& more=1& c=1& tb=1& pb=1) [43] http:/ / www. scstatehouse. net/ sess116_2005-2006/ bills/ 3720. doc [44] http:/ / www. arkleg. state. ar. us/ ftproot/ bills/ 2005/ public/ HB1770. pdf [45] "2006 Burlington mayoral election" (http:/ / www. burlingtonvotes. org/ 20060307/ 2006 Burlington Mayor Round3. htm). Voting Solutions. 2006-03-07. . Retrieved 2008-02-22. [46] "Electoral Systems" (http:/ / www. eca. gov. au/ systems/ single/ by_category/ preferential. htm). Electoral Council of Australia. . Retrieved 2008-02-15. [47] SL2006-0192 (http:/ / www. ncleg. net/ Sessions/ 2005/ Bills/ House/ HTML/ H1024v7. html) [48] History of Preferential Voting in Australia (http:/ / www. abc. net. au/ elections/ federal/ 2004/ guide/ prefhistory. htm), Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2004 Election Guide. "Such a long lasting Coalition would not have been possible under first part the post voting" [49] Virtual Tally Room (http:/ / results. aec. gov. au/ 13745/ website/ ) [50] http:/ / www. mtholyoke. edu/ acad/ polit/ damy/ BeginnningReading/ types. htm [51] Porter, John (2007). "Empowering Moderate Voters" (http:/ / www. brookings. edu/ papers/ 2007/ 0228electionreform_Opp08. aspx). Brookings Institute. . Retrieved 2008-02-15. [52] Fraenkel, Joe and Grofman, Bernard (2006). "Does the Alternative Vote Foster Moderation in Ethnically Divided Societies?: The Case of Fiji" (http:/ / cps. sagepub. com/ cgi/ content/ abstract/ 39/ 5/ 623). Comparative Political Studies. . Retrieved 2008-02-15. [53] John J. Bartholdi III, James B. Orlin (1991) "Single transferable vote resists strategic voting," (http:/ / www. isye. gatech. edu/ ~jjb/ papers/ stv. pdf) Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 8, p. 341-354 [54] John R. Chamberlin (1985) "An investigation into the relative manipulability of four voting systems" (http:/ / www3. interscience. wiley. com/ cgi-bin/ abstract/ 114041252/ ABSTRACT) Behavioral Science, vol. 30, p. 195-203 [55] San Francisco RCV brochure (http:/ / www. sfgov. org/ site/ uploadedfiles/ elections/ VoterEducation/ RCVBrochure_ENG. pdf) [56] 2004 District 5 results (http:/ / www. sfgov. org/ site/ elections_index. asp?id=61494) [57] Incomplete ranking "may prevent any candidate from receiving a majority and require the voting to be repeated" Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 10th edition, pp. 413-414 [58] Antony Green, Antony Green's Q&A ... about the political effect of optional preferential voting. (http:/ / www. abc. net. au/ elections/ federal/ 2004/ items/ 200407/ s1162263. htm) [59] 568_SF_Base.qxd (http:/ / sfpl4. sfpl. org/ pdffiles/ March5_2002. pdf) [60] House of Representatives Results (http:/ / results. aec. gov. au/ 13745/ website/ HouseResultsMenu-13745. htm) [61] Jonathan Marwil, A History of Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 164-165. [62] Amy, Douglas J. (2000). Behind the ballot box: A citizen's guide to voting systems. [63] The New York Times > National > New Runoff System in San Francisco Has the Rival Candidates Cooperating (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2004/ 09/ 30/ national/ 30runoff. html) [64] Oakland Tribune, John Russo (http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_qn4176/ is_20060724/ ai_n16641454)
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Instant-runoff voting [65] Dunbar, John (2005-11-17). "Instant Runoff Voting Not Meeting Expectations" (http:/ / www. beyondchron. org/ news/ index. php?itemid=1468). . [66] Project MUSE (http:/ / muse. jhu. edu/ login?uri=/ journals/ journal_of_democracy/ v013/ 13. 2reilly. html) [67] (http:/ / aceproject. org/ ero-en/ regions/ pacific/ PG/ Papua_new_guinea_leaflet. pdf/ viewl) [68] Jansen, Harold J. (September 2004). "The Political Consequences of the Alternative Vote: Lessons from Western Canada" (http:/ / journals. cambridge. org/ action/ displayAbstract;?fromPage=online& aid=285372). Canadian Journal of Political Science 27 (3). doi:10.1017/S0008423904030227. . Online abstract. [69] Walter, Benjamin. "History of Preferential Voting in Ann Arbor" (http:/ / www. migreens. org/ hvgreens/ aa-irv01. htm). . [70] (http:/ / www. fairvote. org/ ?page=397) [71] http:/ / www. migreens. org/ hvgreens/ aa-irv01. htm/ History of Instant Runoff Voting in Ann Arbor [72] Pierce County RCV Overview (http:/ / www. ncvoter. net/ downloads/ Pierce_Co_WA_2008_IRV_Recap. pdf) [73] County auditor sees savings from scrapping ranked choice voting (http:/ / blogs. thenewstribune. com/ politics/ 2009/ 05/ 06/ pierce_county_auditor_sees_savings_from_Pierce) [74] http:/ / www. ncvoter. net [75] http:/ / www. fairvote. org/ ?page=2469 [76] http:/ / www. inthenews. co. uk/ news/ politics/ mps-vote-to-hold-alternative-vote-referendum-in-october-2011-$1359237. htm [77] http:/ / www. instantrunoff. com/ supports/ elected. php [78] Doron, Gideon, and Richard Kronick (1977). "Single Transferable Vote, An Example of a Perverse Social Choice Function." American Journal of Political Science 21:303-311. [79] Austen-Smith, David; Jeffrey Banks (June 1991). "Monotonicity in Electoral Systems". American Political Science Review 85 (2). [80] http:/ / www. fairvote. ca/ files/ AV-backgrounder-august2009_1. pdf [81] http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ commentisfree/ 2009/ jul/ 28/ electoral-reform-referendum-labour [82] Yee, Ka-Ping (2005-04-21). "Voting Simulation Visualizations" (http:/ / zesty. ca/ voting/ sim/ ). . [83] Glossary: Exhaustive ballot (http:/ / www. securevote. com. au/ gloss_of_terms. html#e) [84] Initiatives - Pew Center on the States (http:/ / www. electionline. org/ Portals/ 1/ Publications/ SC. EAP. 2006primary. pdf) [85] (http:/ / www. fvap. gov/ pubs/ vag/ pdfvag/ la. pdf) Louisiana absentee balloting: E. Special Absentee Ballot for General Election: The special ballot permits you to vote in the following general election by writing in numbers according to your choice of preference for each candidate. You put the number one next to the name of the candidate who is your first choice, the number two for your second choice, and so forth so that, in consecutive numerical order, you write a number indicating your preference next to each candidate’s name on the ballot.] [86] For example, in 2006, the Minnesota Independence Party used IRV for its endorsement elections, requiring 60% to win, and although unused, the rules required a exhaustive balloting to follow if needed. [87] Vermont S.22 1(c)3 (http:/ / www. leg. state. vt. us/ docs/ 2004/ bills/ intro/ S-022. HTM) Sec. 7. (6) ... if neither of the last two remaining candidates in an election ... received a majority, the report and the tabulations performed by the instant runoff count committee shall be forwarded to the Washington superior court which shall issue a certificate of election to whichever of the two remaining candidates received the greatest number of votes at the conclusion of the instant runoff tabulation, and send a certified copy of the tabulation and results to the secretary of state. [88] David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey Banks, "Monotonicity in Electoral Systems," American Political Science Review, Vol 85, No 2 (Jun. 1991) [89] http:/ / aceproject. org/ ace-en/ topics/ es/ esd/ esd01/ esd01d/ esd01d01 [90] http:/ / www. aceproject. org [91] http:/ / www. idea. int/ publications/ esd/ index. cfm [92] http:/ / www. idea. int [93] http:/ / www. aec. gov. au/ [94] http:/ / www. australianpolitics. com/ elections/ features/ preferential. shtml [95] http:/ / www. citizenreviewonline. org/ nov_2006/ 12/ voting. html [96] http:/ / www. sfgov. org/ site/ election_page. asp?id=24269 [97] http:/ / www. burlingtonvotes. org/ [98] http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ uk_politics/ 8506306. stm [99] http:/ / www. choiceranker. com/ election. php?eid=6 [100] http:/ / www. openstv. org/ [101] http:/ / www. demochoice. org/ dcballot. php?poll=Futurama1 [102] http:/ / zesty. ca/ voting/ sim/ [103] http:/ / bolson. org/ voting/ essay. html [104] http:/ / www. fairvote. org/ irv [105] http:/ / www. fairvote. org/ irv/ vt_lite/ history. htm [106] http:/ / www. newamerica. net/ programs/ political_reform/ instant_runoff_voting [107] http:/ / www. lwvofvt. org/ files/ position_on_voter_rights_and_government. pdf [108] http:/ / www. lwvt-pc. org/ [109] http:/ / instantrunoff. com [110] http:/ / www. midwestdemocracy. org/
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Instant-runoff voting [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121]
http:/ / migreens. org/ hvgreens/ aa-irv01. htm http:/ / rooseveltinstitution. org/ publications/ 25ideas/ election_reform http:/ / www. rangevoting. org/ rangeVirv. html http:/ / condorcet. org/ rp/ IRV. shtml http:/ / www. ncvoter. net/ downloads/ Instant_Runoff_Voting_Value_and_Risks_Report. pdf http:/ / fc. antioch. edu/ ~james_green-armytage/ voting. htm http:/ / fc. antioch. edu/ ~james_green-armytage/ vm/ survey. htm#irv http:/ / fc. antioch. edu/ ~james_green-armytage/ vm/ define. htm http:/ / fc. antioch. edu/ ~james_green-armytage/ vm/ introduction. htm#irv http:/ / fc. antioch. edu/ ~james_green-armytage/ vm/ cvdletter. htm http:/ / fc. antioch. edu/ ~james_green-armytage/ vm/ value_of_first_choice. htm
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Article Sources and Contributors
Article Sources and Contributors Instant- runoff voting Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=347946337 Contributors: Abd, Abtract, Acct4, Adam Carr, Aknxy, Alberto Cyone, Algri, Andrewjlockley, Andy Marchbanks, Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The, Ark14, Arthena, Ashley Y, Ask10questions, Atemperman, Audiovideo, AugustinMa, Auros, BRG, Bayle Shanks, Baylink, Bdesham, Belg4mit, Ben Arnold, BenB4, Benhutchings, Birdhurst, Birtej, Blayt, Bobblewik, Bonejohn, BrownHairedGirl, Bryan Derksen, Burn, C.Fred, CRGreathouse, Camipco, Cantus, CapitalR, Captain Zyrain, Cdlw93, Chadlupkes, Chardish, Chuckstar, Ciphergoth2, Claribel07, Clintp, Conversion script, Crico, DCary, DanKeshet, Daniel Olsen, Dann Dobson, Davecrosby uk, David.Serhienko, Davidcannon, Deathphoenix, Debresser, Der Eberswalder, Deskana, Dfarmer, Dhruvtanna, Dingdongalistic, Dissident, Donreed, Doomstars, Doprendek, Draco, Dripp, Drunken Pirate, Dukeofomnium, Dustinasby, Eco84, Eighteen, Electiontechnology, Electionworld, Emily Stevens Gardner, Enchanter, EntmootsOfTrolls, Ericgorr, Explodicle, F, Fahrenheit451, Fang Aili, Flywheel, Frankchn, Funnyhat, Gabbe, Gaius Cornelius, Generalcp702, GetLinkPrimitiveParams, GoldenGoose100, Graham87, GrammarHammer 32, Grant65, GrantNeufeld, Grayscale, GreatWhiteNortherner, Green Giant, Greentryst, Gregbard, GreggW, GregorB, Griot, Ground Zero, Guðsþegn, H5mnd, Happy-melon, Henrygb, Hermitage, Hmwith, Homunq, Horologium, Iceberg3k, Icemanirv, Ilikeverin, InternationalIDEA, Intractable, Iota, Irv Irvin, Ivnryn, JRR Trollkien, JRSP, Jackms, Jacobolus, Jakeaaronson, Jamayama, Jb17kx, Jbartelt9, Jeff.oneill, Jerel42, Jiang, Jlang, John Broughton, John Palkovic, John810, JonSDSUGrad, Joseph Solis in Australia, Joshua, Joyce McCloy, Jpgordon, Jpvosloo, Jtdirl, Justin212k, JzG, KJBracey, KVenzke, Ka-Ping Yee, Kbolino, Kenckar, King Hildebrand, Kowey, Lacrimosus, Leep4life, Levineps, Lhmathies, Lightningwatcher, Listing Port, Little-man, LittleDan, MMc, Malnova, Mantublius, MarkS, MarkusSchulze, MartinHarper, Matt Gies, MattWright, Mauls, Mav, McCart42, Mcarling, Mccready, Meamemg, Meznaric, Michael Devore, Michael Hardy, MilesAgain, Millahnna, Mindmatrix, Mindspillage, Minesweeper, Mmortal03, Monkeyblue, MrBula, MrDolomite, Mrevan, Mrprasad, Ms2ger, Msikma, Muhgcee, Mulad, Nbahn, Nealmcb, Neow, Netoholic, Neuralwarp, Neutrality, NickPenguin, Nickjbor, Nikpapag, No1lakersfan, Nogburt, Nrcprm2026, Olivier, One Salient Oversight, Orderinchaos, Orderinchaos 2, Oregonrains, Oskar, Ozfreediver, Pakaran, Paladinwannabe2, Panarjedde, Parlirules, Pavel Stanley, Peter Ballard, Peyna, Phil Boswell, PhilipR, Phillyfootlong, PigFlu Oink, Pizza Puzzle, Pm67nz, Populus, Porturology, Progressnerd, Qrc2006, Quiensabe, R.H., RRichie, RSido, Radicalsubversiv, Ramorum, Rannpháirtí anaithnid, RayBirks, Rbj, Rich Farmbrough, Richardpku, RickBeton, Rillian, Rje, Rjwilmsi, Rmharman, RobLa, Robert Brockway, Robert Loring, Ron Duvall, Rontrigger, Ropcat, Rrius, Rspeer, Runtime, Sabik, Salsa Shark, Sandstein, Scott Gall, Scott Ritchie, Sietse Snel, SilhouetteSaloon, Simetrical, SimonP, Sir Richardson, Skookum1, Smithers Ltd., SmokeyJoe, Snappy, SockPuppetForTomruen, Soulpatch, Splargo, Starblind, Stemaboatlion, SteveSims, Stifle, StuTheSheep, Sullivan3, Syd1435, Tannin, Tariqabjotu, Tassedethe, Tbouricius, Template namespace initialisation script, The-Traveller-in-Tacoma, Thiseye, Tiger Khan, Tim Ivorson, Timeshift9, Tomruen, Triona, UFu, UkraineToday, Verrai, VeryVerily, Voldemort, Vyn, WakeVerifiedVoting, Webmail716, WikHead, Wilfred Day, Wilfried Derksen, Wolfchild, Wordsofglass, Yath, Yellowbeard, Ygfperson, Zigger, Zocky, Zzuuzz, 636 anonymous edits
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors Image:Preferential ballot.svg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Preferential_ballot.svg License: unknown Contributors: Original uploader was Rspeer at en.wikipedia Later version(s) were uploaded by Mark at en.wikipedia. Image:Hand marking ranked ballot.JPG Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Hand_marking_ranked_ballot.JPG License: Public Domain Contributors: Tbouricius, 1 anonymous edits Image:IRV counting flowchart.1.png Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:IRV_counting_flowchart.1.png License: Public Domain Contributors: Qef, SmokeyJoe, SockPuppetForTomruen Image:IRV-toptwo flowchart.png Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:IRV-toptwo_flowchart.png License: Public Domain Contributors: Tomruen
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