 * HOME (NEWS UPDATES) * WHAT IS IRV? * BENEFITS OF IRV * IRV VOTE COUNTING SYSTEMS * HISTORY OF IRV * REPLIES TO ARGUMENTS * MORE INFORMATION * LOCAL CONTACTS: --IRV-Ashland --IRV-Lane County --IRV-Portland Area | What Is IRV? Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), also called Ranked Choice Voting, is a form of preference voting. Preference voting is a democratic voting procedure that allows voters to rank order candidates for an office according to each voter's preferences. The Oregon State Constitution allows for preference voting in Article II, Section 16: "Provision may be made by law for the voter's direct or indirect expression of his first, second or additional choices among the candidates for an office." Preference voting has been used in Australia for nearly a century and is increasingly being adopted by local governments across the United States. (See History page.) EXAMPLE For example, a voter might decide to rank his or her choice of candidates in this order: Candidate A: 2nd choice Candidate B: Candidate C: 1st choice Candidate D: 3rd choice This voter has ranked candidate C as the first choice, candidate A as the second choice, and candidate D as the third choice, and chosen not to rank candidate B. COUNTING THE VOTES After all the votes are cast, the first choice votes are counted. If any candidate receives a majority of first choice votes (that is, more than 50%), that candidate would be elected. Suppose the candidates received the following number of first choice votes: Candidate A: 412 10% Candidate B: 2,163 55% <winner Candidate C: 1,304 33% Candidate D: 68 2% In this example, candidate B received a majority of first choice votes (2,163 is 55% of all 3,947 votes cast) and so is elected. RUN-OFF ROUNDS Under IRV, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes in order to win the election. If no candidate receives a majority of the first choice votes, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes would be eliminated and that candidate's ballots then count for the next-highest ranked candidate on each of those ballots. For example, imagine the first choice totals came out like this: Candidate A: 503 13% Candidate B: 1,728 44% Candidate C: 1,631 41% Candidate D: 85 2% no winner In this example, none of the candidates received a majority of the votes. (Candidate B's leading position is not a majority.) Therefore candidate D would be eliminated, and candidate D's ballots will count for the next-highest ranked candidate on each of those ballots in the next round of counting. Suppose that in the above example, of the ballots for which candidate D was the first choice, 21 had candidate A as the second choice, 54 have candidate B as the second choice, and 11 have candidate C as the second choice. In the second round of counting, the results would be: Candidate A: 523 13% Candidate B: 1,782 45% Candidate C: 1,642 42% no winner If one of the candidates had a majority in this round of counting, that candidate would be elected. However, in this example none of the candidates has a majority yet. Therefore the process of the second round is repeated: the candidate with the fewest votes (now candidate A) is eliminated, and that candidate's ballots then count for each of those ballots' next-highest ranked candidate. Suppose the totals of the third round of counting come out thus: Candidate B: 1,949 49% Candidate C: 1,998 51% <winner Candidate C now has a majority (1,986 is 50.6% of the total 3,947 votes), and is elected. IRV thus allows a majority to determine the winner of an election without the need for a separate run-off election. The votes are simply recounted using voters' ranked preferences, thus the name "instant" run-off. |