Instant Runoff Voting

Posted at 12:12 pm on Friday, October 3, 2003, in Uncategorized.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is the answer to our plurality issues with elections. Under a plurality system, a person can win with only, say, 35% of the vote. A runoff election is costly, and eliminates all but the top two candidates. The answer, my friends, is IRV.

If you haven’t researched IRV, please do, for this is only a small recap. On election day, each voter votes for his/her top choice, but then ranks the others from 2 to n, n being the number of candidates.

If not one candidate receives a majority of the vote, the bottom candidate (who received the least 1st choice votes) is thrown out, and the 2nd through nth votes that were tallied on his/her ballots are divided up accordingly. These votes are added to the other candidates’ tallies.

This process is repeated until there is a winner with a clear majority. It saves taxpayer money by not requiring a second election (which historically has far less voter turnout) and maintains that only a mandate from the people (i.e., a simple majority) allows for a person to attain office.

(Read more about Instant Runoff Voting.)

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