History and use of instant-runoff voting
Instant-runoff voting was invented around 1870 by the American architect W. R. Ware. Today it is in use at a national level to elect the Australian House of Representatives, the Fijian House of Representatives and the President of Ireland. In Australia it is also used for elections to the legislative assemblies (lower houses) of all states and territories except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, and for the Tasmanian Legislative Council (upper house).
IRV is also used for municipal elections in various places in Australia, the United States, and New Zealand. Because of its relationship to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, IRV is used for by-elections in a some jurisdictions that use STV for ordinary parliamentary elections, such as the Republic of Ireland.
IRV is known by different names in the various countries in which it is used. It is also known as the 'Alternative Vote', 'Ranked Choice Voting', 'Preferential Voting', and the 'Hare system'. The last three of these names may be misleading, because IRV is only one of a number of forms of preferential voting systems, and because the precise system known as 'instant-runoff voting' was invented by Ware rather than Thomas Hare.
History
Instant-runoff voting is based on the Single Transferable Vote electoral system, invented independently by Thomas Hare in 1857 and Carl Andrae in 1855. Unlike IRV, the Single Transferable Vote was designed as form of proportional representation involving multi-seat constituencies, and today STV is used in a number of countries, including Australia, the Republic of Ireland and Malta.
When William Robert Ware invented IRV he apparently simply applied the Single Transferable Vote system to single winner elections. He was not a mathematician and thus never subjected his election method to any rigorous analysis. At the same time as STV was spreading through Australia in the nineteenth century IRV began to be introduced. IRV was adopted for the Australian House of Representatives in 1918 and has been used to elect the President of Ireland since the office came into being in 1937. It was introduced in Fiji in 1999.
Similar systems
There are a number of systems similar to IRV that only permit the voter to rank a certain number of candidates, or for two rounds of counting. A two count variant known as the Contingent Vote was used in Queensland in the ninteenth century. In mayoral elections in the United Kingdom the Supplementary Vote (SV) is used; under SV voters only express a first and a second choice. Under the Sri Lankan system, used to elect the President of Sri Lanka, voters express only three preferences. This is also the case with elections to the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea, held under the Limited Preferential Vote.
Use by country
Canada
In the past IRV has been used in the Canadian state of British Columbia. Under the name 'preferential' or 'elimination ballot', it was used in the general election of 1952 and the general election of 1953. IRV was initially brought in by the governing coalition consisting of the Liberal and Conservative Parties to try to prevent a left-wing government under the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation as voters could then choose one of the governing parties as their first choice and the other as their second choice. However, IRV backfired on the Liberals and Conservatives when many CCF supporters chose the relatively unknown Social Credit Party, a minor party that had never held any seats in the British Columbia legislature, as their second choice. The Social Credit Party achieved a spectacular upset victory in the 1952 election, winning a plurality of 19 seats in the 48-member legislature to 18 for the CCF, 6 for the Liberals and 4 for the Conservatives. The Soc Creds formed a short-lived minority government until the 1953 election, in which they won a majority of seats (28 of 48). After the 1953 election, the Liberal and renamed Progressive Conservative Parties were reduced to third parties in the province, and first-past-the-post was reinstated by the government.
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).
In order to increase awareness of the voting method and to demonstrate it in a real-world situation, the Independence Party of Minnesota tested IRV by using it in a straw poll during the 2004 Minnesota caucuses (results favored John Edwards). Also, the Green Party of Minnesota conducts an annual poll of Minnesota State Fair attendees, where each person ranks their preferences for fair food to better understand how IRV works in a real-world situation. IRV was adopted for mayoral races in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1974 after a successful ballot initiative sponsored by the local, left-wing Human Rights Party; however, the process was used only for the 1975 mayoral election.
In March 2002, an initiative backed by the Center for Voting and Democracy passed by referendum making instant runoff voting the means of electing local candidates in San Francisco. It was first used in that city in the October 2004 YouthVOTE, an election held throughout San Francisco’s public schools which elected the SF school board's student delegate, [1] after that it was used in the November 2004 supervisoral races. (Note: The San Francisco Department of Elections prefers 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.")
Voters in Ferndale, Michigan amended the city charter in 2004 to allow for election of the mayor and city council by instant-runoff voting. On March 1, 2005, voters in Burlington, Vermont voted to amend their city charter to use instant-runoff voting. In its first use, on March 7, 2006, state representative Bob Kiss (Progressive) [2] was elected mayor. When the "first choice" votes were counted, Kiss had 39%; the next highest candidates had 31% and 26%. In the November 8, 2005 election, 84% of 1582 voters in Takoma Park, Maryland voted to adopt IRV for the city.
Proposals not yet adopted
In September 2003, an amendment to the California State Constitution was proposed (SCA 14) with wide-ranging goals of election reform, including ranked-choice voting for statewide offices. Activists in the state of Washington have been urging adoption of instant-runoff voting there for several years. An initiative seeking ballot access in 2005 failed to garner enough signatures. The city of Vancouver, Washington has voted to adopt instant-runoff voting, but the state legislature has yet to enact enabling legislation.
On May 26, 2005, Representative Cynthia McKinney introduced H.R.2690, the "Voter Choice Act of 2005," which requires the use of Instant Runoff Voting for General Elections for Federal Office. The bill has no co-sponsors, and has sat without action in the U.S. House Committee on House Administration since the date of introduction.