Games - Instant-runoff voting

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Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV), Alternative Vote (AV), Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), or the Hare system is a voting system normally used for single-winner elections utilizing a ranked ballot. In Australia and New Zealand it is referred to as Preferential Voting — although this term may be misleading because it is not the only preferential voting system.

The term instant-runoff refers to the way in which IRV ballots are tabulated, as the winner is determined similarly to holding a series of runoff elections with vote choices implied from the alternative preferences listed on the ballot. Instant-runoff voting is mathematically equivalent to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method when there is only a single winner, and is therefore sometimes referred to as STV.

IRV was first used in Australia by the self-governing colony of Queensland, in 1893. The system gradually spread to other parts of Australia and has been used to elect the Australian House of Representatives since 1919. IRV is also used to elect the President of Ireland, the Papua New Guinea National Parliament, and the Fijian House of Representatives.

History and usage

Instant-Runoff Voting was invented around 1870 by American architect William Robert Ware. Ware was not a mathematician, thus never subjected his election method to any rigorous analysis. He evidently based IRV on the single winner outcome of the Single Transferable Vote or STV developed in 1855 originally by Carl Andrae in Denmark. It was introduced into England in 1857 by the barrister Thomas Hare, where it earned public praise from John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher, member of parliament, and employee of the East India Company.

Current usage

IRV is used in Australia for elections to the Federal House of Representatives, for the Legislative Assemblies ("lower houses") of all states and territories except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, which use regional multi-member constituencies. It is also used for the Legislative Councils ("upper houses") of Tasmania and Victoria, although the latter will switch to the multi-member variant from 2006.

In the Pacific, IRV is used for the Fijian House of Representatives. Papua New Guinea has also decided to adopt it for future elections, starting in 2007. The Fijian system has been modified to allow for both "default preferences", specified by the political party or candidate, and "custom preferences", specified by the voter. Each political party or candidate ranks all other candidates according to its own preference; voters who are happy with that need only to vote for their own preferred candidate, whose preferences will automatically be transferred according to the ranking specified by the candidate. Voters who disagree with the ranking, however, may opt to rank the candidates according to their own preferences. In the last election, however, only about a tenth of all voters did so. The ballot paper is divided by a thick black line, with boxes above (for the default options) and below (for customized preferences).

The countries mentioned above all use IRV for some or all of their municipal elections. Starting in 2004, some municipal areas in New Zealand also adopted IRV to elect mayors and STV to elect councilors. Political parties, cooperatives and other private groups also use STV and/or IRV.

A voting method similar to IRV, known as plurality vote with elimination, is used to select the winning bid of both the Summer and Winter Olympics in the International Olympic Committee.

See Table of voting systems by nation

Adoption in the United States

Suggested by a recent version of Robert's Rules of Order, instant-runoff voting is used in the United States for some non-governmental elections, including student elections at some major universities, including most notably the ASUC at the University of California, Berkeley.

This issue rose to attention in the United States in the 2000 election. Supporters of Ralph Nader who nevertheless preferred Democrat Al Gore to Republican George W. Bush found themselves caught in a dilemma. They could vote for Nader, and risk Gore losing to Bush, or, they could vote for Gore, just to make sure that Bush is defeated. It has been argued that Bush won solely due to the "spoiler effect" of Nader supporters in either Florida or in New Hampshire.

Notable supporters include Republican U.S. Senator John McCain, 2004 Democratic presidential primary election candidates Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich, and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. The system is favored by the United States Green Party and the United States Libertarian Party, as a solution to the "spoiler" effect third-party sympathizers suffer from under plurality voting (i.e., voters are forced to vote tactically to defeat the candidate they most dislike, rather than for their own preferred candidate).

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