Instant-runoff voting

Single-winner ranked-choice electoral system

For the proportional electoral system applying ranked ballots to multi-member constituencies, see single transferable vote.

For ranked methods in general, see ranked voting.

A joint Politics and Economics series

Social choice and electoral systems

* Social choice
* Mechanism design
* Comparative politics
* Comparison
* List (By country)

Single-winner methods

Single vote - plurality methods

* First preference plurality (FPP)
* Two-round (US: Jungle primary)
* Partisan primary
* Instant-runoff
* UK: Alternative vote (AV)
* US: Ranked-choice (RCV)

* * *

Condorcet methods

* Condorcet-IRV
* Round-robin voting
* Minimax
* Schulze
* Ranked pairs
* Maximal lottery

* * *

Positional voting

* Plurality (el. IRV)
* Borda count (el. Baldwin)
* Antiplurality (el. Coombs)

* * *

Cardinal voting

* Score voting
* Approval voting
* Majority judgment
* STAR voting

Proportional representation

Party-list

* Apportionment
* Highest averages
* Largest remainders
* National remnant
* Biproportional
* List type
* Closed list
* Open list
* Panachage
* List-free PR
* Localized list

* * *

Quota-remainder methods

* Hare STV
* Schulze STV
* CPO-STV
* Quota Borda

* * *

Approval-based committees

* Thiele's method
* Phragmen's method
* Expanding approvals rule
* Method of equal shares

* * *

Fractional social choice

* Direct representation
* Interactive representation
* Liquid democracy
* Fractional approval voting
* Maximal lottery
* Random ballot

* * *

Semi-proportional representation

* Cumulative
* SNTV
* Limited voting

Mixed systems

By results of combination

* Mixed-member majoritarian
* Mixed-member proportional

* * *

By mechanism of combination

* Non-compensatory
* Parallel (superposition)
* Coexistence
* Conditional
* Fusion (majority bonus)
* Compensatory
* Seat linkage system
* UK: 'AMS'
* NZ: 'MMP'
* Vote linkage system
* Negative vote transfer
* Mixed ballot
* Supermixed systems
* Dual-member proportional
* Rural–urban proportional
* Majority jackpot

* * *

By ballot type

* Single vote
* Double simultaneous vote
* Dual-vote

Paradoxes and pathologies

Spoiler effects

* Spoiler effect
* Cloning paradox
* Frustrated majorities paradox
* Center squeeze

* * *

Pathological response

* Perverse response
* Best-is-worst paradox
* No-show paradox
* Multiple districts paradox

* * *

Strategic voting

* Lesser evil voting
* Exaggeration
* Truncation
* Turkey-raising

* * *

Paradoxes of majority rule

* Tyranny of the majority
* Discursive dilemma
* Conflicting majorities paradox

Social and collective choice

Impossibility theorems

* Arrow's theorem
* Majority impossibility
* Moulin's impossibility theorem
* McKelvey–Schofield chaos theorem
* Gibbard's theorem

* * *

Positive results

* Median voter theorem
* Condorcet's jury theorem
* May's theorem
* Condorcet dominance theorems
* Harsanyi's utilitarian theorem

* Politics portal
* Economics portal

Mathematics portal

* v
* t
* e

Instant-runoff voting (IRV) (US: ranked-choice voting or RCV, AU: preferential voting, UK: alternative vote), is a single-winner, multi-round elimination rule that uses ranked voting to simulate a series of runoff elections. In each round, the last-place finisher according to a plurality vote is eliminated, and the votes supporting the eliminated choice are transferred to their next available preference until one of the options reaches a majority of the remaining votes. Instant runoff falls under the plurality-with-elimination family of voting methods,[1] and is thus closely related to rules like the exhaustive ballot and two-round runoff system[2][3]

IRV has found some use in national elections in several countries, predominantly in the Anglosphere. It is used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives and the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea as well as the President of India, the President of Ireland, and the President of Sri Lanka.

The rule was first developed and studied by the Marquis de Condorcet, who came to reject it after discovering it could eliminate the majority-preferred candidate in a race (today often called a Condorcet winner).[4][5][6] IRV is known to exhibit other mathematical pathologies, which include non-monotonicity[7] and the No-show paradox.[8][9] Like some other commonly-used systems, IRV also exhibits a kind of independence of irrelevant alternative violation called a center squeeze,[10][11] which may sometimes prevent the election of a Condorcet winner. Whilst the Marquis de Condorcet early on showed that it did not satisfy his Condorcet winner criterion, which it may fail under certain scenarios, instant-runoff voting satisfies many other majoritarian criteria, such as the majority criterion, mutual majority criterion and the Condorcet loser criterion.

Advocates have argued these properties are positive, because voting rules should encourage candidates to focus on their core support or political base, rather than building a broad coalition.[12] They also note that in countries like the United Kingdom without primaries or runoff elections, IRV can prevent spoiler effects by eliminating minor-party candidates in early rounds, and that unlike plurality, it is not affected by the presence of duplicate candidates (clones).

## Election procedure

[edit]

Flowchart of instant-runoff voting

In instant-runoff voting, as with other ranked voting rules, each voter orders candidates from first to last. The counting procedure is then as follows:

1. If there is a candidate that has a majority of the top preferences of the valid, active ballots, then that candidate is elected and the count stops. If not, go to step 2.
2. If there is more than one candidate left, eliminate the one with the fewest top preferences.[a]
3. Reassign votes held by the eliminated candidate(s) to the highest available preference indicated on each ballot paper (setting aside any with no remaining preferences). Return to Step 1.

It is possible for a candidate to win an instant-runoff race without any support from more than half of voters, even when there is an alternative majority-approved candidate; this occurs when some voters truncate their ballots to show they do not support any candidates in the final round.[13] In practice, candidates who do not receive a majority of votes in the first round usually do not finish with a majority.[14]

## Properties

[edit]

### Wasted votes and Condorcet winners

[edit]

Compared to a plurality voting system that rewards only the top vote-getter, instant-runoff voting mitigates the problem of wasted votes.[15] However, it does not ensure the election of a Condorcet winner, which is the candidate who would win a direct election against any other candidate in the race.

### Invalid, incomplete and exhausted ballots

[edit]

All forms of ranked-choice voting reduce to plurality when all ballots rank only one candidate. By extension, ballots for which all candidates ranked are eliminated are equivalent to votes for any non-winner in plurality, and considered exhausted ballots.

Some political scientists have found the system contributes to higher rates of spoiled votes,[16] partly because the ballot marking is more complex.[16][14] Most jurisdictions with IRV do not require complete rankings and may use columns to indicate preference instead of numbers. In American elections with IRV, more than 99 percent of voters typically cast a valid ballot.[17]

A 2015 study of four local US elections that used IRV found that inactive ballots occurred often enough in each of them that the winner of each election did not receive a majority of votes cast in the first round. The rate of inactive ballots in each election ranged from a low of 9.6 percent to a high of 27.1 percent.[18]

### Resistance to strategy

[edit]

Instant-runoff voting has notably high resistance to tactical voting but less to strategic nomination.

#### Party strategizing and strategic nomination

[edit]

In Australia, preference deals (where one party's voters agree to place another party's voters second, in return for their doing the same) between parties are common. Parties and candidates often encourage their supporters to participate in these preference deals using How-to-vote cards explaining how to use their lower rankings to maximize the chances of their ballot helping to elect someone in the preference deal before it may exhaust.[19]

Instant runoff may be manipulable via strategic candidate entry and exit, reducing similar candidates' chances of winning. Such manipulation does not need to be intentional, instead acting to deter candidates from running in the first place.[20] Spatial model simulations indicate that instant runoff rewards strategic withdrawal by candidates.[21][b]

#### Tactical voting

[edit]

See also: Tactical voting § Instant runoff voting

Gibbard's theorem demonstrates that no (deterministic, non-dictatorial) voting method can be entirely immune from tactical voting. This implies that IRV is susceptible to tactical voting in some circumstances. In particular, when there exists a Condorcet winner who IRV fails to elect, voters who prefer the Condorcet winner to the IRV winner have an incentive to use the compromising strategy.[21]: proposition 17 IRV is also sometimes vulnerable to a paradoxical strategy of ranking a candidate higher to make them lose, due to IRV failing the monotonicity criterion.[22]

Research suggests that IRV is very resistant to tactical voting. In a test of multiple methods, instant runoff was found to be the second-most-resistant to tactical voting, after a class of instant runoff-Condorcet hybrids.[23] IRV is also completely immune to the burying strategy: ranking a strong opposition candidate lower can't get one's preferred candidate elected.[21]: proposition 3

Tactical voting in IRV seeks to alter the order of eliminations in early rounds, to ensure that the original winner is challenged by a stronger opponent in the final round. For example, in a three-party election where voters for both the left and right prefer the centrist candidate to stop the opposing candidate from winning, those voters who care more about defeating the opposition than electing their own candidate may cast a tactical first-preference vote for the centrist candidate.

#### Spoiler effect

[edit]

Main article: Spoiler effect

Proponents of IRV claim that IRV eliminates the spoiler effect, since IRV makes it safe to vote honestly for marginal parties. Under a plurality method, voters who sympathize most strongly with a marginal candidate are strongly encouraged to instead vote for a more popular candidate who shares some of the same principles, since that candidate has a much greater chance of being elected and a vote for the marginal candidate will not result in the marginal candidate's election. An IRV method reduces this problem, since the voter can rank the marginal candidate first and the mainstream candidate second; in the likely event that the fringe candidate is eliminated, the vote is not wasted but is transferred to the second preference.

However, when the third-party candidate is more competitive, they can still act as a spoiler under IRV,[24][25][26] by taking away first-choice votes from the more mainstream candidate until that candidate is eliminated, and then that candidate's second-choice votes helping a more-disliked candidate to win. In these scenarios, it would have been better for the third party voters if their candidate had not run at all (spoiler effect), or if they had voted dishonestly, ranking their favourite second rather than first (favorite betrayal).[27][better source needed] This is the same bracketing effect exploited by Robinette and Tideman in their research on strategic campaigning, where a candidate alters their campaign to cause a change in voter honest choice, resulting in the elimination of a candidate who nevertheless remains more preferred by voters.

For example, in the 2009 Burlington, Vermont, mayoral election, if the Republican candidate who lost in the final instant runoff had not run, the Democratic candidate would have defeated the winning Progressive candidate. In that sense, the Republican candidate was a spoiler—albeit for an opposing Democrat, rather than some political ally—even though leading in first choice support.[26] This also occurred in the 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election. If Republican Sarah Palin, who lost in the final instant runoff, had not run, the more centrist Republican candidate, Nick Begich, would have defeated the winning Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola.[28]

## Reception

[edit]

The system has had a mixed reception among political scientists and social choice theorists.[29][30] Some have suggested that the system does not do much to decrease the impact of wasted votes relative to plurality.[31][16][32] Research has found IRV causes lower confidence in elections[33][34][35] and does not substantially affect minority representation,[36] voter turnout,[29][32] or long-run electoral competition.[29][36] Opponents have also noted a high rate of repeals for the system.[34]

### Voter confusion and legitimacy

[edit]

Governor Paul LePage[37] and Representative Bruce Poliquin[38] claimed, ahead of the 2018 primary elections, that IRV would result in "one person, five votes", as opposed to "one person, one vote". Federal judge Lance Walker rejected these claims, and the 1st circuit court denied Poliquin's emergency appeal.[39]

### Similarity to plurality

[edit]

Most[quantify] instant-runoff voting elections are won by the candidate who leads in first-choice rankings, choosing the same winner as plurality voting.[citation needed] In Australia, the 1972 federal election had the highest proportion of winners who would not have won under first past the post—with only 14 out of 125 seats not won by the plurality candidate.[40][clarification needed (no opinions?)]

### Participation

[edit]

The effect of IRV on voter turnout is difficult to assess. In a 2021 report, researchers at New America, a think tank based in Washington, D. C., said it may increase turnout by attracting more and more diverse candidates, but the impact would be realized most significantly by getting rid of the need for primaries.[41] The overall impact on diversity of candidates is difficult to detect.[29]

## Terminology

[edit]

Instant-runoff voting derives its name from the way the ballot count simulates a series of runoffs, similar to an exhaustive ballot system, except that voters do not need to turn out several times to vote.[42] It is also known as the alternative vote, transferable vote, ranked-choice voting (RCV), single-seat ranked-choice voting, or preferential voting.[43]

Britons and New Zealanders generally call IRV the "alternative vote" (AV).[44][45] Australians, who use IRV for most single winner elections, call IRV "preferential voting".[46] While this term is widely used by Australians, it is somewhat of a misnomer: Depending on how "preferential" is defined, the term would either include all voting systems or else would exclude IRV (as it fails positive responsiveness, implying ballot markings cannot be reinterpreted as "preferences" in the traditional sense).

Jurisdictions in the United States such as San Francisco, Minneapolis, Maine, and Alaska have tended to use the term "ranked-choice voting" in their laws. The San Francisco Department of Elections claimed the word "instant" in the term "instant-runoff voting" could confuse voters into expecting results to be immediately available.[47][48] As a result of American influence, the term ranked-choice voting is often used in Canada as well.[49] American NGO FairVote has promoted the terminology "ranked-choice voting" to refer to IRV,[49][50] a choice that has caused controversy and accusations that the organization is attempting to obscure the existence of other ranked-choice methods that could compete with IRV.[citation needed]

IRV is occasionally referred to as Hare's method[51] (after Thomas Hare) to differentiate it from other ranked-choice voting methods such as majority-choice voting, Borda, and Bucklin.

When the single transferable vote (STV) method is applied to a single-winner election, it becomes IRV; the government of Ireland has called IRV "proportional representation" based on the fact that the same ballot form is used to elect its president by IRV and parliamentary seats by proportional representation (STV), but IRV is a non-proportional winner-take-all (single-winner) election method, while STV elects multiple winners.[52] State law in South Carolina[53] and Arkansas[54] use "instant runoff" to describe the practice of having certain categories of absentee voters cast ranked-choice ballots before the first round of an election and counting those ballots in any subsequent runoff elections.

## History and use

[edit]

Main article: History and use of instant-runoff voting

### History

[edit]

This method was first discussed by the Marquis de Condorcet in 1788, who quickly rejected it after showing it would often eliminate a candidate preferred by a majority of voters.[5][55]

IRV was later independently reinvented by Thomas Hare in the form of the single transferable vote. Henry Richmond Droop then proposed applying the system to the single-winner case.

### Global use

[edit]

Main article: History and use of instant-runoff voting § Use by country

#### National level elections

[edit]

Country  | Body or office  | Type of body or office  | Electoral system | Total seats  | Notes

|
|
|
|
|

Australia  | House of Representatives | Lower chamber of legislature  | IRV  | 151  |
Ireland  | President | Head of State  | IRV  |  |
Dáil Éireann | Lower chamber of legislature  | Single transferable vote (STV), by-elections using IRV  | 158[56] |
Papua New Guinea  | National Parliament | Unicameral legislature  | IRV  | 109  |
United States  | President (via Electoral College)  | Head of State and Government  | Alaska and Maine use IRV to select the state winner. In Maine, 2 electors are allocated to the winner and the others (currently 2) are allocated by congressional district, while in Alaska, the winner gets all electors of the state in the Electoral College system (as Alaska has only one at-large district, the effect is the same).  | 7 EVs[57] (out of 538)  |
House of Representatives | Lower chamber of legislature  | IRV in Maine

Nonpartisan primary system with IRV in the second round (among top four candidates) in Alaska.[58][59][60][61]

| 3 (out of 435)  |
Senate | Upper chamber of legislature  | 4 (out of 100)  |

### Robert's Rules of Order

[edit]

In the United States, the sequential elimination method used by IRV is described in Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised as an example of ranked-choice voting that can be used to elect officers.[62] Robert's Rules note that ranked-choice systems (including IRV) are an improvement on simple plurality but recommend against runoff-based rules because they often prevent the emergence of a consensus candidate with broad support. The book instead recommends repeated balloting until some candidate manages to win a majority of votes. Two other books on American parliamentary procedure, The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure[63] and Riddick's Rules of Procedure,[64] take a similar stance.

## Similar methods

[edit]

### Runoff voting

[edit]

This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (August 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

The term instant-runoff voting is derived from the name of a class of voting methods 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. All multi-round runoff voting methods allow voters to change their preferences in each round, incorporating the results of the prior round to influence their decision, which is not possible in IRV.

The runoff method closest to IRV is the exhaustive ballot. In this method—familiar to fans of the television show American Idol—one candidate is eliminated after each round, and many rounds of voting are used, rather than just two. Because holding many rounds of voting on separate days is generally expensive, the exhaustive ballot is not used for large-scale, public elections.

A more practical form of runoff voting is the two-round system, which excludes all but the top-two candidates after the first round, rather than gradually eliminating candidates over a series of rounds. Eliminations can occur with or without allowing and applying preference votes to choose the final two candidates. A second round of voting or counting is only necessary if no candidate receives an overall majority of votes. This method is used in Mali, France and the Finnish and Slovenian presidential election.

### Contingent vote

[edit]

This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (August 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

Top-two IRV

The contingent vote, also known as "top-two IRV", is the same as IRV, except that if no candidate achieves a majority in the first round of counting, all but the two candidates with the most votes are eliminated, and the second preferences for those ballots are counted. As in IRV, there is only one round of voting.

Under a variant of contingent voting used in Sri Lanka, and formerly for the elections for Mayor of London in the United Kingdom, voters rank a specified maximum number of candidates. In London, the supplementary vote allowed[c] voters to express first and second preferences only. Sri Lankan voters rank up to three candidates to elect the president of Sri Lanka.

While similar to "sequential-elimination" IRV, top-two can produce different results. Excluding more than one candidate after the first count might eliminate a candidate who would have won under sequential elimination IRV. Restricting voters to a maximum number of preferences is more likely to exhaust ballots if voters do not anticipate which candidates will finish in the top two. This can encourage voters to vote more tactically, by ranking at least one candidate they think is likely to win.

Conversely, a practical benefit of 'contingent voting' is expediency and confidence in the result with only two rounds.

### Larger runoff process

[edit]

IRV may also be part of a larger runoff process:

* Some jurisdictions that hold runoff elections allow absentee (only) voters to submit IRV ballots, because the interval between votes is too short for a second round of absentee voting. IRV ballots enable absentee votes to count in the second (general) election round if their first choice does not make the runoff. Arkansas, South Carolina and Springfield, Illinois adopt this approach.[65] Louisiana uses it only for members of the United States Service or who reside overseas.[66][better source needed][needs update]
* IRV can quickly eliminate weak candidates in early rounds of an exhaustive ballot runoff, using rules to leave the desired number of candidates for further balloting.
* IRV elections that require a majority of cast ballots but not that voters rank all candidates may require more than a single IRV ballot due to exhausted ballots.
* Robert's Rules recommends preferential voting for elections by mail and requiring a majority of cast votes to elect a winner. For in-person elections, they recommend repeated balloting until one candidate receives an absolute majority of all votes cast; if candidates drop out as soon as it becomes clear they cannot win, this procedure will always elect a Condorcet winner. The use of repeated balloting allows voters to resolve Condorcet cycles by discussion and compromise, or by electing a consensus candidate who might have polled poorly in the initial election.[62]

### Comparison to first-past-the-post

[edit]

In the Australian federal election in September 2013, 135 out of the 150 House of Representatives seats (or 90 percent) were won by the candidate who led on first preferences. The other 15 seats (10 percent) were won by the candidate who placed second on first preferences.[67][better source needed]

### Variations

[edit]

Example of a full preferential ballot paper from the Australian House of Representatives

A number of IRV methods, varying as to ballot design and as to whether or not voters are obliged to provide a full list of preferences, are in use in different countries and local governments.

In an optional preferential voting system, voters can give a preference to as many candidates as they wish. They may make only a single choice, known as "bullet voting", and some jurisdictions accept a single box marked with an "X" (as opposed to a numeral "1") as valid for the first preference. This may result in exhausted ballots, where all of a voter's preferences are eliminated before a candidate is elected, such that the "majority" in the final round may only constitute a minority fraction of all ballots cast. Optional preferential voting is used for elections for the President of Ireland as well as some elections in New South Wales and Queensland.[68][69]

In a full-preferential voting method, voters are required to mark a preference for every candidate standing.[70] Ballots that do not contain a complete ordering of all candidates are in some jurisdictions considered spoilt or invalid, even if there are only two candidates standing. This can become burdensome in elections with many candidates and can lead to "donkey voting", in which some voters simply choose candidates at random or in top-to-bottom order, or a voter may order his or her preferred candidates and then fill in the remainder on a donkey basis. Full preferential voting is used for elections to the Australian federal parliament and for most state parliaments.

Other methods only allow marking preferences for a maximum of the voter's top three favourites, a form of partial preferential voting.[71]

A version of instant-runoff voting applying to the ranking of parties was first proposed for elections in Germany in 2013[72] as spare vote.[citation needed]

## Voting method criteria

[edit]

Scholars rate voting methods using mathematically derived voting method criteria, which describe desirable features of a method. No ranked-preference method can meet all of the criteria, because some of them are mutually exclusive, as shown by statements such as Arrow's impossibility theorem and the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem.[citation needed]

Many of the mathematical criteria by which voting methods are compared were formulated for voters with ordinal preferences. If voters vote according to the same ordinal preferences in both rounds, criteria can be applied to two-round systems of runoffs, and in that case, each of the criteria failed by IRV is also failed by the two-round system as they relate to automatic elimination of trailing candidates. Partial results exist for other models of voter behavior in the two-round method: see the two-round system article's criterion compliance section for more information.[citation needed]

### Satisfied criteria

[edit]

#### Condorcet loser Criterion

[edit]

> The Condorcet loser criterion states that "if a candidate would lose a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must not win the overall election". IRV (like all voting methods with a final runoff round) meets this criterion, since the Condorcet loser cannot win a runoff.

#### Independence of clones criterion

[edit]

> The independence of clones criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if an identical candidate who is equally preferred decides to run". Advocates have noted that IRV meeting this criterion[73][74] greatly reduces the impact of clones compared to FPTP.

#### Later-no-harm criterion

[edit]

> The later-no-harm criterion states that "if a voter alters the order of candidates lower in his/her preference (e.g. swapping the second and third preferences), then that does not affect the chances of the most preferred candidate being elected". Instant runoff satisfies this criterion.

#### Majority criterion

[edit]

> The majority criterion states that "if one candidate is preferred by an absolute majority of voters, then that candidate must win". Instant runoff also satisfies this criterion.

#### Mutual majority criterion

[edit]

> The mutual majority criterion states that "if an absolute majority of voters prefer every member of a group of candidates to every candidate not in that group, then one of the preferred group must win". Note that this is satisfied because when all but one candidate that a mutual majority prefer is eliminated, the votes of the majority all flow to the remaining candidate, in contrast to FPTP, where the majority would be treated as separate small groups. Instant runoff satisfies this criterion as well.

#### Resolvability criterion

[edit]

> The resolvability criterion states that "the probability of an exact tie must diminish as more votes are cast".[citation needed]

### Failed criteria

[edit]

This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (September 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

#### Condorcet winner criterion

[edit]

The Condorcet winner criterion states that "if a candidate would win a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must win the overall election". It is incompatible with the later-no-harm criterion, so IRV does not meet this criterion.

IRV is more likely to elect the Condorcet winner than plurality voting and traditional runoff elections. The California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and San Leandro in 2010 provide an example; there were a total of four elections in which the plurality-voting leader in first-choice rankings was defeated, and in each case the IRV winner was the Condorcet winner, including a San Francisco election in which the IRV winner was in third place in first choice rankings.

Systems which fail Condorcet but pass mutual majority can exclude voters outside the mutual majority from the vote, essentially becoming an election between the mutual majority.[citation needed] IRV demonstrates this exclusion of up to 50 percent of voters, notably in the 2009 Burlington mayoral election where the later rounds became a runoff between the mutual majority of voters favouring Andy Montroll and Bob Kiss. This can recurse: if a mutual majority exists within the mutual majority, then the majority becomes a collegiate over the minority, and the inner mutual majority solely decides the votes of this collegiate.

#### Independence of irrelevant alternatives

[edit]

The independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if a candidate who cannot win decides to run." Instant-runoff voting violates this. In the general case, instant-runoff voting can be susceptible to strategic nomination: whether or not a candidate decides to run at all can affect the result even if the new candidate cannot themselves win. This is less likely to happen than under plurality, but much more likely than under the Minimax Condorcet method.[21]

#### Monotonicity criterion

[edit]

Further information: Monotonicity criterion § Instant-runoff voting and the two-round system are not monotonic

The monotonicity criterion says that a voter ranking a candidate higher on their ballot should not cause that candidate to lose and conversely, that a voter ranking a candidate lower on their ballot should not help that candidate win. The exact probability of a monotonicity failure depends on the circumstances, but with 3 major candidates, the probabilities range from 14.5 percent under the impartial culture model[citation needed] to 8.5 percent in the case of a strict left–right spectrum.[75]

#### Participation criterion

[edit]

The participation criterion says that candidates should not lose as a result of having "too many voters"—a set of ballots that all rank A>B should not switch the election winner from B to A. IRV fails this criterion. In his 1984 study, mathematician Depankar Ray found that in elections where IRV elects a different candidate from plurality, that there was an estimated 50 percent probability that some voters would have gotten a more preferable outcome if they had not participated.[9]

#### Reversal symmetry criterion

[edit]

This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (August 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

The reversal symmetry criterion states that the first- and last-place candidates should switch places if every ballot is reversed. In other words, it should not matter whether voters rank candidates from best-to-worst and select the best candidate, or whether they rank them worst-to-best and then select the least-bad candidate.

IRV fails this criterion: it is possible to construct an election where reversing the order of every ballot does not alter the final winner; that is, the first- and last-place finishers, according to IRV, are the same candidate.[citation needed]

### Comparison to other voting systems

[edit]

Main article: Comparison of electoral systems

Comparison of single-winner voting systems

Criterion

Method

| Majority winner | Majority loser | Mutual majority | Condorcet winner[Tn 1] | Condorcet loser | Smith[Tn 1] | Smith-IIA[Tn 1] | IIA/LIIA[Tn 1] | Clone­proof | Mono­tone | Participation | Later-no-harm[Tn 1] | Later-no-help[Tn 1] | No favorite betrayal[Tn 1] | Ballot

type

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

First-past-the-post voting | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Single mark
Anti-plurality | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | Single mark
Two round system | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Single mark
Instant-runoff | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Ran­king
Coombs | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Ran­king
Nanson | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Baldwin | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Tideman alternative | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Minimax | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes[Tn 2] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No[Tn 2] | No  | No  | Ran­king
Copeland | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Black | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Kemeny–Young | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | LIIA Only  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Ranked pairs | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | LIIA Only  | Yes  | Yes  | No[Tn 3] | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Schulze | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No[Tn 3] | No  | No  | No  | Ran­king
Borda | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | Ran­king
Bucklin | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | Ran­king
Approval | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes[Tn 4] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Appr­ovals
Majority Judgement | Yes  | Yes[Tn 5] | No[Tn 6] | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes[Tn 4] | Yes  | Yes  | No[Tn 3] | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Scores
Score | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes[Tn 4] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Scores
STAR | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Scores
Random ballot[Tn 7] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Single mark
Sortition[Tn 8] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | None
Table Notes  |

1. ^ a b c d e f g Condorcet's criterion is incompatible with the consistency, participation, later-no-harm, later-no-help, and sincere favorite criteria.
2. ^ a b A variant of Minimax that counts only pairwise opposition, not opposition minus support, fails the Condorcet criterion and meets later-no-harm.
3. ^ a b c In Highest median, Ranked Pairs, and Schulze voting, there is always a regret-free, semi-honest ballot for any voter, holding all other ballots constant and assuming they know enough about how others will vote. Under such circumstances, there is always at least one way for a voter to participate without grading any less-preferred candidate above any more-preferred one.
4. ^ a b c Approval voting, score voting, and majority judgment satisfy IIA if it is assumed that voters rate candidates independently using their own absolute scale. For this to hold, in some elections, some voters must use less than their full voting power despite having meaningful preferences among viable candidates.
5. ^ Majority Judgment may elect a candidate uniquely least-preferred by over half of voters, but it never elects the candidate uniquely bottom-rated by over half of voters.
6. ^ Majority Judgment fails the mutual majority criterion, but satisfies the criterion if the majority ranks the mutually favored set above a given absolute grade and all others below that grade.
7. ^ A randomly chosen ballot determines winner. This and closely related methods are of mathematical interest and included here to demonstrate that even unreasonable methods can pass voting method criteria.
8. ^ Where a winner is randomly chosen from the candidates, sortition is included to demonstrate that even non-voting methods can pass some criteria.

## Examples

[edit]

The first example is a fictional one for the purpose of demonstrating the principle of instant runoff. The other examples are drawn from the results of real-life elections.

### Tennessee capital example

[edit]

* v
* t
* e

Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital. The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are:

* Memphis, the largest city, but far from the others (42% of voters)
* Nashville, near the center of the state (26% of voters)
* Chattanooga, somewhat east (15% of voters)
* Knoxville, far to the northeast (17% of voters)

The preferences of each region's voters are:

42% of voters
Far-West | 26% of voters
Center | 15% of voters
Center-East | 17% of voters
Far-East

|
|
|

1. Memphis
2. Nashville
3. Chattanooga
4. Knoxville

1. Nashville
2. Chattanooga
3. Knoxville
4. Memphis

1. Chattanooga
2. Knoxville
3. Nashville
4. Memphis

1. Knoxville
2. Chattanooga
3. Nashville
4. Memphis

It takes three rounds to determine a winner in this election.

Round 1 – In the first round no city gets a majority:

Votes in round/

City Choice

| 1st

|

Memphis  | 42%
Nashville  | 26%
Knoxville  | 17%
Chattanooga  | 15%

If one of the cities had achieved a majority vote (more than half), the election would end there. If this were a first-past-the-post election, Memphis would win because it received the most votes. But IRV does not allow a candidate to win on the first round without having an absolute majority of the active votes. Since no city has won yet, the city with the least first-place support (Chattanooga) is eliminated from consideration. The ballots that listed Chattanooga as first choice are added to the totals of the second-choice selection on each ballot.

Round 2 – In the second round of tabulation, Chattanooga's 15% of the total votes have been added to the second choices selected by the voters for whom that city was first-choice (in this example Knoxville):

Votes in round/

City Choice

| 1st  | 2nd

|
|

Memphis  | 42%  | 42%
Nashville  | 26%  | 26%
Knoxville  | 17%  | 32%
Chattanooga  | 15% |

In the first round, Memphis was first, Nashville was second and Knoxville was third. With Chattanooga eliminated and its votes redistributed, the second round finds Memphis still in first place, followed by Knoxville in second and Nashville has moved down to third place. No city yet has secured a majority of votes, so the now last placed Nashville is eliminated and the ballots currently counting for Nashville are added to the totals of Memphis or Knoxville based on which city is ranked next on that ballot.

Round 3

As Memphis and Knoxville are the only two cities remaining in the contest, this round will be the final round. In this example the second-choice of the Nashville voters is Chattanooga, which is already eliminated. Therefore, the votes are added to their third-choice: Knoxville. The third round of tabulation yields the following result:

Votes in round/

City Choice

| 1st  | 2nd  | 3rd

|
|
|

Memphis  | 42%  | 42%  | 42%
Nashville  | 26%  | 26%
Knoxville  | 17%  | 32%  | 58%
Chattanooga  | 15%

Result: Knoxville, which was running third in the first tabulation, has moved up from behind to take first place in the third and final round. The winner of the election is Knoxville. However, if 6% of voters in Memphis were to put Nashville first, the winner would be Nashville, a preferable outcome for voters in Memphis. This is an example of potential tactical voting, though one that would be difficult for voters to carry out in practice. Also, if 17% of voters in Memphis were to stay away from voting, the winner would be Nashville. This is an example of IRV failing the participation criterion.

For comparison, note that traditional first-past-the-post voting would elect Memphis, even though most citizens consider it the worst choice, because 42% is larger than any other single city. As Nashville is a Condorcet winner, Condorcet methods would elect Nashville. A two-round method would have a runoff between Memphis and Nashville where Nashville would win, too.

### 1990 Irish presidential election

[edit]

See also: Irish presidential election, 1990

The 1990 Irish presidential election provides a simple example of how instant-runoff voting can produce a different result from first-past-the-post voting and prevent some spoiler effects associated with plurality voting. The three major candidates were Brian Lenihan of Fianna Fáil, Austin Currie of Fine Gael, and Mary Robinson of the Labour Party. After the first count, Lenihan had the largest share of first-choice rankings. Currie had the fewest votes and was eliminated. After this, Robinson received 82 percent of Currie's votes, thereby overtaking Lenihan.

Irish presidential election, 1990[76] Candidate  | Round 1  | Round 2

|
|

Mary Robinson | 612,265  | 38.9%  | 817,830 | 51.6%
Brian Lenihan | 694,484  | 43.8%  | 731,273  | 46.2%
Austin Currie | 267,902  | 16.9%N | Eliminated
Exhausted ballots  | 9,444  | 0.6%  | 34,992  | 2.2%
Total  | 1,584,095  | 100%  | 1,584,095  | 100%

### 2014 Prahran election (Victoria)

[edit]

Another real-life example of IRV producing results different from first-past-the-post can be seen in the 2014 Victorian general election in Prahran. In this rare instance, the candidate who initially placed third, (Greens candidate Sam Hibbins), won the seat.[77] In the 7th and final round, Hibbins narrowly defeated Liberal candidate Clem Newton-Brown by a margin of 277 votes.

Candidate  | 1st  | 2nd  | 3rd  | 4th  | 5th  | 6th  | 7th

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Clem Newton-Brown (LIB)  | 44.8%  | 16,582 | 16,592 | 16,644 | 16,726 | 16,843 | 17,076 | 18,363  | 49.6%
Sam Hibbins (GRN)  | 24.8%  | 9,160  | 9,171  | 9,218  | 9,310  | 9,403  | 9,979 | 18,640 | 50.4%
Neil Pharaoh (ALP)  | 25.9%  | 9,586 | 9,593 | 9,639 | 9,690 | 9,758 | 9,948N | Eliminated
Eleonora Gullone (AJP)  | 2.3%  | 837  | 860  | 891  | 928  | 999N | Eliminated
Jason Goldsmith (IND)  | 0.7%  | 247  | 263  | 316  | 349N | Eliminated
Alan Walker (FFP)  | 0.8%  | 282  | 283  | 295N | Eliminated
Steve Stefanopoulos (IND)  | 0.6%  | 227  | 241N | Eliminated
Alan Menadue (IND)  | 0.2%  | 82N | Eliminated
Total  | 100% | 37,003

### 2009 Burlington mayoral election

[edit]

See also: 2009 Burlington mayoral election

Burlington mayoral election, 2009 (round-by-round analysis of votes)  Candidates  | 1st round  | 2nd round  | 3rd round

|
|
|

Candidate | Party  | Votes  | ±  | Votes  | ±  | Votes  | ±
Bob Kiss | Progressive | 2585  | +2585  | 2981  | +396  | 4313 | +1332
Kurt Wright  | Republican | 2951 | +2951  | 3294 | +343  | 4061  | +767
Andy Montroll  | Democrat | 2063  | +2063  | 2554  | +491  | 0  | −2554
Dan Smith  | Independent | 1306  | +1306  | 0  | −1306
Others  |  | 71  | +71  | 0  | −71
Exhausted |  | 4  | +4  | 151  | +147  | 606  | +455

Under Burlington, Vermont's second-ever IRV mayoral election in 2009, the winner, Bob Kiss, was elected over the more popular Andy Montroll as a result of a first-round spoiler effect.

FairVote touted the 2009 election as one of its major success stories,[78] claiming it helped the city save on costs of a traditional runoff[78][79] and prevented a spoiler effect,[80] although later analysis showed that without Wright in the election, Montroll would have defeated Kiss in a one-on-one race.[81]

Mathematicians and voting theorists criticized the election results as revealing several pathologies associated with instant-runoff voting, noting that Kiss was elected as a result of 750 votes cast against him (ranking Kiss in last place).[82][83]

Several electoral reform advocates branded the election a failure after Kiss was elected, despite 54 percent of voters voting for Montroll over Kiss,[84] violating the principle of majority rule.[81][85][86][87]

Locals argued the system was convoluted,[79] turned the election into a "gambling game" by disqualifying Montroll for having won too many votes,[83][87] and "eliminated the most popular moderate candidate and elected an extremist".

Burlington mayoral election, 2009 (summary analysis)  Party  | Candidate  | Maximum
round  | Maximum
votes  | Share in
maximum
round  | Maximum votes
First round votesTransfer votes

|
|
|
|
|

| Progressive | Bob Kiss | 3  | 4,313  | 48.0%  |

| Republican | Kurt Wright  | 3  | 4,061  | 45.2%  |

| Democratic | Andy Montroll  | 2  | 2,554  | 28.4%  |

| Independent | Dan Smith  | 1  | 1,306  | 14.5%  |

| Green | James Simpson  | 1  | 35  | 0.4%  |

| Write-in  |  | 1  | 36  | 0.4%  |

Exhausted votes  | 606  | 6.7%  |

## See also

[edit]

* Single transferable vote, a proportional method that reduces to instant runoff in single-winner elections.
* Ranked voting
* Comparison of electoral systems
* Alternative vote plus (AV+), or alternative vote top-up, proposed by the Jenkins Commission in the UK
* Duverger's law
* Write-in candidate

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ This procedure can be sped-up by eliminating more than one candidate if their combined top preferences are less than the next-lowest remaining candidate; this process is sometimes called batch elimination. When batch elimination is used, the procedure can terminate if some candidate has a majority.
2. ^ Figure 4 on page 137 shows instant-runoff voting having exit incentive despite being clone independent.
3. ^ Following the Elections Act 2022, voting in mayoral elections now takes place under the first-past-the-post system.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Nurmi, Hannu (June 2005). "Aggregation problems in policy evaluation: an overview". European Journal of Political Economy. 21 (2): 287–300. doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2004.08.001. ISSN 0176-2680.
2. ^ Aubin, Jean-Baptiste; Gannaz, Irène; Leoni-Aubin, Samuela; Rolland, Antoine (July 2024). A simulation-based study of proximity between voting rules.
3. ^ Hyman, Ross; Otis, Deb; Allen, Seamus; Dennis, Greg (1 September 2024). "A majority rule philosophy for instant runoff voting". Constitutional Political Economy. 35 (3): 425–436. doi:10.1007/s10602-024-09442-3. ISSN 1572-9966.
4. ^ Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat (1788). "On the Constitution and the Functions of Provincial Assemblies". Complete Works of Condorcet (in French). Vol. 13 (published 1804). p. 243\. "En effet, lorsqu'il y a plus de trois concurrents, le véritable vœu de la pluralité peut être pour un candidat qui n'ait eu aucune des voix dans le premier scrutin."
5. ^ a b Nanson, E. J. (1882). "Methods of election: Ware's Method". Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 17: 206. "The method was, however, mentioned by Condorcet, but only to be condemned."
6. ^ Campbell, D.E.; Kelly, J.S. (2000). "A simple characterization of majority rule". Economic Theory. 15 (3): 689–700. doi:10.1007/s001990050318. JSTOR 25055296. S2CID 122290254.
7. ^ Doron, Gideon; Kronick, Richard (1977). "Single Transferrable Vote: An Example of a Perverse Social Choice Function". American Journal of Political Science. 21 (2): 303–311. doi:10.2307/2110496. ISSN 0092-5853. JSTOR 2110496.
8. ^ Stensholt, Eivind (2018). "What is Wrong with IRV?". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3272186. ISSN 1556-5068.
9. ^ a b Ray, Depankar (1986). "On the practical possibility of a 'no show paradox' under the single transferable vote". Mathematical Social Sciences. 11 (2): 183–189. doi:10.1016/0165-4896(86)90024-7.
10. ^ Nurmi, Hannu (December 1996). "It's not just the lack of monotonicity1". Representation. 34 (1): 48–52. doi:10.1080/00344899608522986. ISSN 0034-4893.
11. ^ McGann, Anthony J.; Koetzle, William; Grofman, Bernard (2002). "How an Ideologically Concentrated Minority Can Trump a Dispersed Majority: Nonmedian Voter Results for Plurality, Run-off, and Sequential Elimination Elections". American Journal of Political Science. 46 (1): 134–147. doi:10.2307/3088418. ISSN 0092-5853. JSTOR 3088418. "As with simple plurality elections, it is apparent the outcome will be highly sensitive to the distribution of candidates."
12. ^ Hyman, Ross; Otis, Deb; Allen, Seamus; Dennis, Greg (September 2024). "A Majority Rule Philosophy for Instant Runoff Voting". Constitutional Political Economy. 35 (3): 425–436. arXiv:2308.08430. doi:10.1007/s10602-024-09442-3. ISSN 1043-4062.
13. ^ Dopp, Kathy Anne (2011). "Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting Flaws and Benefits of IRV". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1858374. ISSN 1556-5068. SSRN 1858374.
14. ^ a b Graham-Squire, Adam; McCune, David (6 March 2023). "An Examination of Ranked Choice Voting in the United States, 2004-2022". arXiv:2301.12075 [econ.GN].
15. ^ Chamberlin, John R.; Cohen, Michael D. (1978). "Toward Applicable Social Choice Theory: A Comparison of Social Choice Functions under Spatial Model Assumptions". American Political Science Review. 72 (4). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 1341–1356. doi:10.2307/1954543. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1954543. "A long-established response to the 'wasted vote' problem is the method advocated by Hare..."
16. ^ a b c Pettigrew, Stephen; Radley, Dylan (2023). "Ballot Marking Errors in Ranked-Choice Voting". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4670677. ISSN 1556-5068.
17. ^ "Instant Runoff Voting and Its Impact on Racial Minorities" (PDF). New America Foundation. 1 August 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 June 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2011.
18. ^ Burnett, Craig M.; Kogan, Vladimir (March 2015). "Ballot (and voter) 'exhaustion' under Instant Runoff Voting: An examination of four ranked-choice elections". Electoral Studies. 37: 41–49. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2014.11.006. S2CID 11159132.
19. ^ "Explained: What are 'preference deals' and how do they influence my vote?". 9News. 20 May 2022.
20. ^ Robinette, Robbie (2 February 2023). "Implications of strategic position choices by candidates". Constitutional Political Economy. 34 (3). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 445–457. doi:10.1007/s10602-022-09378-6. ISSN 1043-4062.
21. ^ a b c d Green-Armytage, James (2014). "Strategic voting and nomination". Social Choice and Welfare. 42 (1). Springer: 111–138. doi:10.1007/s00355-013-0725-3. ISSN 0176-1714. JSTOR 43663746. S2CID 253847024. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
22. ^ "Monotonicity and IRV – Why the Monotonicity Criterion is of Little Import". archive.fairvote.org. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
23. ^ Green-Armytage, James (2011). "Four Condorcet-Hare Hybrid Methods for Single-Winner Elections" (PDF). Voting matters. Retrieved 25 October 2024.
24. ^ Borgers, Christoph (2010). Mathematics of Social Choice: Voting, Compensation, and Division. SIAM. ISBN 9780898716955. "Candidates C and D spoiled the election for B ... With them in the running, A won, whereas without them in the running, B would have won. ... Instant runoff voting ... does not do away with the spoiler problem entirely, although it ... makes it less likely"
25. ^ Poundstone, William (2009). Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9781429957649. "IRV is excellent for preventing classic spoilers-minor candidates who irrationally tip the election from one major candidate to another. It is not so good when the 'spoiler' has a real chance of winning"
26. ^ a b Bristow-Johnson, R. (2023). "The failure of Instant Runoff to accomplish the purpose for which it was adopted: a case study from Burlington Vermont" (PDF). Const Polit Econ. 34 (3): 378–389. doi:10.1007/s10602-023-09393-1. S2CID 255657135. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
27. ^ O'Neill, Jeffrey C. (2006). "Everything That Can be Counted Does Not Necessarily Count: The Right to Vote and the Choice of a Voting System". SSRN Working Paper Series: 340. doi:10.2139/ssrn.883058. ISSN 1556-5068. S2CID 155750146. "With instant runoff voting ... The strategy for the liberal voter is the same as for plurality voting: Her favorite candidate cannot win, so she casts her vote for her favorite candidate with a realistic chance of winning"
28. ^ Graham-Squire, Adam; McCune, David (2022). "A Mathematical Analysis of the 2022 Alaska Special Election for US House". arXiv:2209.04764v1 [econ.GN].
29. ^ a b c d Drutman, Lee; Strano, Maresa (10 November 2021). "What We Know About Ranked-Choice Voting". New America. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
30. ^ Drutman, Lee (18 September 2023). "How I updated my views on ranked choice voting". Undercurrent Events. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
31. ^ "Understanding the Limited Preferential Voting system – EMTV Online". 10 April 2017. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
32. ^ a b Endersby, James W.; Towle, Michael J. (1 March 2014). "Making wasted votes count: Turnout, transfers, and preferential voting in practice". Electoral Studies. 33: 144–152. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2013.07.001. ISSN 0261-3794.
33. ^ "The Effect of Ranked-Choice Voting in Maine | MIT Election Lab". electionlab.mit.edu. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
34. ^ a b Cerrone, Joseph; McClintock, Cynthia (August 2023). "Come-from-behind victories under ranked-choice voting and runoff: The impact on voter satisfaction". Politics & Policy. 51 (4): 569–587. doi:10.1111/polp.12544. ISSN 1555-5623.
35. ^ Nielson, Lindsay (August 2017). "Ranked Choice Voting and Attitudes toward Democracy in the United States: Results from a Survey Experiment". Politics & Policy. 45 (4): 535–570. doi:10.1111/polp.12212. ISSN 1555-5623.
36. ^ a b "The Short-Term Impact of Ranked-Choice Voting on Candidate Entry and Descriptive Representation". New America. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
37. ^ Leary, Mal (12 June 2018). "Opposed To Ranked-Choice Voting, LePage Says He Might Not Certify Primary Election Results". Maine Public. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
38. ^ "Complaint" (PDF), Baber v. Dunlap (Court Filing), no. 1:18-cv-00465, Docket 1, D.M.E., 13 November 2018, retrieved 13 January 2019 - via Recap
39. ^ "1st Circuit ends Poliquin's efforts to keep House seat". Bangor Daily News. 22 December 2018. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
40. ^ Green, Antony (11 May 2010). "Preferential Voting in Australia". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
41. ^ "What We Know About Ranked-Choice Voting". New America.
42. ^ "Second Report: Election of a Speaker". House of Commons Select Committee on Procedure. 15 February 2001. Retrieved 18 February 2008.
43. ^ Cary, David (1 January 2011). "Estimating the Margin of Victory for Instant-runoff Voting". Proceedings of the 2011 Conference on Electronic Voting Technology/Workshop on Trustworthy Elections. EVT/WOTE'11: 3.
44. ^ "BBC News – Alternative vote". bbc.com. British Broadcasting Corporation. 8 February 2012. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
45. ^ "Opinion: OUSA Needs the Alternative Vote". Critic – Te Arohi. Otago, New Zealand: Otago University Students' Association. 30 September 2017. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
46. ^ "Liberal plan to change federal voting laws may have crossbench support". The Guardian. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
47. ^ Appendix D, Instant Runoff Voting, San Francisco Charter § 13.102 https://sfgov.org/ccsfgsa/sites/default/files/Voting Systems Task Force/AppendixD__.pdf.
48. ^ Arntz, John (2 February 2005). "Ranked-Choice Voting: A Guide for Candidates" (PDF). Department of Elections: City and County of San Francisco. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 December 2008. Retrieved 25 August 2009 - via FairVote. "In San Francisco, ranked-choice voting is sometimes called 'instant run-off voting.' The Department of Elections generally uses the term ranked-choice voting, because it describes the voting method—voters are directed to rank their first-, second- and third-choice candidates. The Department also uses the term ranked-choice voting because the word 'instant' might create an expectation that final results will be available immediately after the polls close on election night."
49. ^ a b "What is Ranked Choice Voting?". City of London. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018.
50. ^ "How RCV Works". FairVote. 17 August 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
51. ^ Pacuit, Eric (24 June 2019) [3 August 2011]. "Voting Methods". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 ed.) - via plato.stanford.edu.
52. ^ "Proportional Representation". Citizens Information Board. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
53. ^ "South Carolina General Assembly : 116th Session, 2005–2006". Scstatehouse.gov. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
54. ^ "Bill Information". Arkleg.state.ar.us. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
55. ^ Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat (1788). "On the Constitution and the Functions of Provincial Assemblies". Complete Works of Condorcet (in French). Vol. 13 (published 1804). p. 243\. "En effet, lorsqu'il y a plus de trois concurrents, le véritable vœu de la pluralité peut être pour un candidat qui n'ait eu aucune des voix dans le premier scrutin."
56. ^ The Ceann Comhairle or Speaker of Dáil Éireann is returned automatically for whichever constituency s/he was elected if they wish to seek re-election, reducing the number of seats contested in that constituency by one. (In that case, should the Ceann Comhairle be from a three-seater, only two seats are contested in the general election from there.) As a result, if the Ceann Comhairle wishes to be in the next Dáil, only 165 seats are actually contested in a general election.
57. ^ electoral votes
58. ^ "Maine became the first state in the country Tuesday to pass ranked-choice voting". 10 November 2016. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
59. ^ "Ranked Choice Voting | Maine Voters Rank Candidates". Maine Uses Ranked Choice Voting. Archived from the original on 4 April 2018. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
60. ^ Russell, Eric (12 June 2018). "Mainers vote to keep ranked-choice voting, with supporters holding commanding lead". Portland Press Herald. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
61. ^ "Alaska Ballot Measure 2, Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting and Campaign Finance Laws Initiative (2020)". Ballotpedia. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
62. ^ a b Robert, Henry (2011). Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (11th ed.). Da Capo Press. pp. 425–428. ISBN 978-0-306-82020-5.
63. ^ Sturgis, Alice (2001). The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, 4th ed.
64. ^ Riddick & Butcher (1985). Riddick's Rules of Procedure, 1985 ed.
65. ^ "Initiatives – Pew Center on the States" (PDF). Electionline.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
66. ^ IRV for Louisiana's Overseas Voters (web page), FairVote IRV America, retrieved 16 June 2013
67. ^ Antony Green (8 September 2015). Preferences, Donkey Votes and the Canning By-Election – Antony Green's Election Blog (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 8 September 2015.
68. ^ "Voting system". www.ecq.qld.gov.au. Electoral Commission of Queensland. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
69. ^ Stevens, Bronwyn (27 January 2015). "Are Queenslanders in danger of 'wasting' their votes?". The Conversation. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
70. ^ "Electoral Systems". Electoral Council of Australia. Archived from the original on 9 March 2008. Retrieved 15 February 2008.
71. ^ "Ranked-Choice Voting". Registrar of Voters, Alameda County. Retrieved 15 December 2016. "This format allows a voter to select a first-choice candidate in the first column, a second-choice candidate in the second column, and a third-choice candidate in the third column."
72. ^ Breyer, Patrick (November 2013). "Alternative II: Einführung einer Ersatzstimme" (PDF). Anhörung zum Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Abschaffung der Fünf-Prozent-Sperrklausel bei Landtagswahlen in Schleswig-Holstein [Hearing on the draft law to abolish the five percent threshold in state elections in Schleswig-Holstein (Discussion paper)] (Report) (in German). Piratenfraktion im Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landtag. (Drs. 18/385).
73. ^ Green-Armytage, James (2004). "A Survey of Basic Voting Methods". Archived from the original on 3 June 2013.
74. ^ Tideman, T. N. (1987). "Independence of clones as a criterion for voting rules". Social Choice and Welfare. 4 (3). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 185–206. doi:10.1007/bf00433944. ISSN 0176-1714. "Among previously proposed voting rules, the alternative vote and the GOCHA rule are independent of clones."
75. ^ Lepelley, Dominique; Chantreuil, Frederic; Berg, Sven (1996). "The likelihood of monotonicity paradoxes in run-off elections". Mathematical Social Sciences. 31 (3): 133–146. doi:10.1016/0165-4896(95)00804-7.
76. ^ "Presidential Election November 1990". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 23 November 2009.
77. ^ "State Election 2014: Prahran District (Distribution of preference votes)". Victorian Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
78. ^ a b Etnier, Carl (6 March 2009). "Instant runoff was success". Rutland Herald. Retrieved 17 March 2018.[permanent dead link]
79. ^ a b Totten, Shay. "Burlington Residents Seek Repeal of Instant Runoff Voting". Seven Days. Retrieved 17 March 2018. "We waited to bring in the signatures because we didn't want this to be about Kurt Wright losing after being ahead, or Andy Montroll who had more first and second place votes and didn't win. We wanted this to be about IRV."
80. ^ Bouricius, Terry (17 March 2009). "Response to Faulty Analysis of Burlington IRV Election". FairVote.org. Retrieved 1 October 2017. "successfully prevented the election of the candidate who would likely have won under plurality rules, but would have lost to either of the other top finishers in a runoff"
81. ^ a b Lewyn, Michael (2012). "Two Cheers for Instant Runoff Voting". Phoenix L. Rev. 6: 117. SSRN 2276015. "election where Democratic candidate for mayor was Condorcet winner but finished third behind Republican and 'Progressive'"
82. ^ Felsenthal, Dan S.; Tideman, Nicolaus (2014). "Interacting double monotonicity failure with direction of impact under five voting methods". Mathematical Social Sciences. 67: 57–66. doi:10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2013.08.001. ISSN 0165-4896. "A display of non-monotonicity under the Alternative Vote method was reported recently, for the March 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vermont."
83. ^ a b Ornstein, Joseph T.; Norman, Robert Z. (1 October 2014). "Frequency of monotonicity failure under Instant Runoff Voting: estimates based on a spatial model of elections". Public Choice. 161 (1–2): 1–9. doi:10.1007/s11127-013-0118-2. ISSN 0048-5829. S2CID 30833409. "Although the Democrat was the Condorcet winner (a majority of voters preferred him in all two way contests), he received the fewest first-place votes and so was eliminated ... 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, VT, which illustrates the key features of an upward monotonicity failure"
84. ^ Bristow-Johnson, Robert (2023). "The failure of Instant Runoff to accomplish the purpose for which it was adopted: a case study from Burlington Vermont". Constitutional Political Economy. 34 (3): 378–389. doi:10.1007/s10602-023-09393-1.
85. ^ Ellenberg, Jordan (29 May 2014). How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking. Penguin. p. 385. ISBN 9780698163843. "a majority of voters liked the centrist candidate Montroll better than Kiss, and a majority of voters liked Montroll better than Wright ... yet Montroll was tossed in the first round."
86. ^ Stensholt, Eivind (7 October 2015). "What Happened in Burlington?". NHH Dept. Of Business and Management Science. Discussion Paper No. 2015/26. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2670462. hdl:11250/2356264. SSRN 2670462. "K was elected even though M was a clear Condorcet winner and W was a clear Plurality winner."
87. ^ a b Dopp, Kathy (10 June 2009). "IRV much worse than old runoffs". The Aspen Times. Retrieved 17 March 2018.

## External links

[edit]

* "Explainer: Instant runoff voting" by MIT Election Science Lab

* v
* t
* e

Electoral systems

Part of the politics and Economics series

Single-winner|

* Approval voting
* Combined approval voting
* Unified primary
* Borda count
* Bucklin voting
* Condorcet methods
* Copeland's method
* Dodgson's method
* Kemeny–Young method
* Minimax Condorcet method
* Nanson's method
* Ranked pairs
* Schulze method
* Exhaustive ballot
* First-past-the-post voting
* Instant-runoff voting
* Coombs' method
* Contingent vote
* Supplementary vote
* Simple majoritarianism
* Plurality
* Positional voting system
* Score voting
* STAR voting
* Two-round system
* Graduated majority judgment

Proportional|

| Systems|

* Mixed-member
* Mixed single vote
* Party-list
* Proportional approval voting
* Rural–urban
* Sequential proportional approval voting
* Single transferable vote
* CPO-STV
* Hare-Clark
* Schulze STV
* Spare vote
* Indirect single transferable voting

|

Allocation|

* Highest averages method
* Webster/Sainte-Laguë
* D'Hondt
* Largest remainders method

Quotas|

* Droop quota
* Hagenbach-Bischoff quota
* Hare quota
* Imperiali quota

Mixed|

* Parallel voting
* MMP
* Additional member system
* Alternative vote plus
* Mixed single vote
* Mixed ballot transferable vote
* Scorporo
* Vote linkage mixed system

Semi-proportional|

* Single non-transferable vote
* Limited voting
* Cumulative voting
* Satisfaction approval voting

Criteria|

* Condorcet winner criterion
* Condorcet loser criterion
* Consistency criterion
* Independence of clones
* Independence of irrelevant alternatives
* Independence of Smith-dominated alternatives
* Later-no-harm criterion
* Majority criterion
* Majority loser criterion
* Monotonicity criterion
* Mutual majority criterion
* Participation criterion
* Plurality criterion
* Resolvability criterion
* Reversal symmetry
* Smith criterion
* Seats-to-votes ratio

Other|

* Ballot
* Election threshold
* First-preference votes
* Liquid democracy
* Spoilt vote
* Sortition
* Unseating

Comparison|

* Comparison of voting systems
* Voting systems by country

Portal — Project

* v
* t
* e

Parliament of Australia

Components|

* King (represented by the Governor-General)
* Senate
* House of Representatives

Parliamentary
officers|

| Senate|

* President of the Senate
* Clerk
* Leader of the Government
* Manager of Government Business
* Leader of the Opposition
* Manager of Opposition Business
* Whips (list)

|

House of
Representatives|

* Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
* Clerk
* Prime Minister
* Leader of the House
* Leader of the Opposition
* Manager of Opposition Business
* Whips (list)

Members|

* Served in both houses
* Represented multiple states
* Longest service
* Independents

| Senate|

* Current (previous)
* Appointees
* Women

|

House of
Representatives|

* Current (previous)
* Women

Parliaments|

* Chronology of Australian federal parliaments
* 45th Parliament of Australia
* 46th Parliament of Australia
* 47th Parliament of Australia

Procedure|

* Speech from the throne
* Joint meetings
* Question time
* Matter of public importance
* Readings of bills
* King's Consent
* Royal assent
* List of acts of the Parliament of Australia
* Committees: Senate | House of Reps

Elections|

* Last
* Next
* List
* Double dissolution
* Senate: Single transferable vote
* House of Representatives: Instant-runoff voting
* Two-party-preferred vote
* Electorates
* By-elections
* Caretaker government
* Court of Disputed Returns

Locations|

* Parliament House, Melbourne
* Old Parliament House
* Parliament House, Canberra

See also|

* List of members of the Australian Parliament who died in office
* Members of multiple Australian legislatures

* v
* t
* e

2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum

Results

Referendum question|

"At present, the UK uses the “first past the post” system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the “alternative vote” system be used instead?"

Legislation|

* Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011

Parties|

| For a "Yes" vote|

* Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
* Christian Party
* Christian Peoples Alliance
* English Democrats
* Green Party of England and Wales
* Liberal Democrats
* Liberal Party
* Mebyon Kernow
* Pirate Party UK
* Plaid Cymru
* Scottish Greens
* Scottish National Party
* SDLP
* Sinn Féin
* UKIP
* Libertarian Party

|

Neutral/split|

* Labour Party
* Socialist Party of Great Britain
* Official Monster Raving Loony Party

For a "No" vote|

* British National Party
* Communist Party
* Conservative Party
* Democratic Unionist Party
* England First Party
* Green Party Northern Ireland
* Respect Party
* Socialist Party
* Traditional Unionist Voice
* Ulster Unionist Party

Advocacy groups|

| Advocating a "Yes" vote|

* YES! To Fairer Votes

|

Advocating a "No" vote|

* NOtoAV

Print media|

| For a "Yes" vote|

* The Guardian
* The Independent
* Financial Times
* Daily Mirror

|

For a "No" vote|

* The Sun
* Daily Mail
* The Times
* Daily Express
* The Daily Telegraph
* The Economist
* Evening Standard

Politics Portal
*[US:]: United States and Canada
*[UK:]: United Kingdom and New Zealand
*[el.]:
*[NZ:]:
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[AU:]: Australia