History and use of instant-runoff voting
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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.
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[edit] 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 a 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.
[edit] Use by country
[edit] Canada
In the past IRV has been used in the Canadian province 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.
[edit] Republic of Ireland
In the Republic of Ireland IRV is used for presidential elections and for by-elections to the Dáil (the lower house of parliament). Most elections in the Republic use the Single Transferable Vote. This system was first introduced for a national election when the abortive Parliament of Southern Ireland was elected in 1921. It was provided, at the same time, that by-elections for the body would occur under IRV. When what is now the Republic seceded from the United Kingdom in 1922 STV was adopted for ordinary elections to Dáil Éireann and IRV for by-elections, and this combination has been used ever since. STV is also used for local and European elections, but in these cases by-elections do not occur. Instead local council vacancies are filled by co-option and European vacancies by an individual from a list of replacements nominated by the MEP at the time of his election.
The office of President of Ireland has existed since the adoption of the current Constitution of Ireland in 1937, which provided that the President would be elected by IRV. However the first election did not occur until 1945. This is because the constitution also allows that, where there is agreement among political parties, a consensus candidate can come to office without the occurrence of an election. The President occupies a largely ceremonial position, as real power is exercised by the Taoiseach (prime minister) and Dáil.
On the island of Ireland IRV is not referred to as 'instant-runoff voting' and only rarely as the 'Alternative Vote', the name popular in Great Britain. Instead it is usually called the 'Single Transferable Vote' or, sometimes, incorrectly, 'proportional representation'. The name Single Transferable Vote is used because when the rules of STV are applied to a single-winner election, such as a presidential election or by-election, STV becomes one and the same as IRV. However this can be confusing because there are many important differences between the use of STV for multi-seat elections and IRV. For this reason many scholars regard STV as a separate system from IRV, and that is the convention followed in this article. It is incorrect to refer to IRV as 'proportional representation' because the term proportional representation can only meaningfully be applied to an election in which more than a single candidate is returned.
[edit] United Kingdom
IRV is currently used in the United Kingdom for by-elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. In 1917, the Speaker's Conference advocated the adoption of instant-runoff for 358 of the 569 constituencies in the UK, and STV for the rest. The intention was that STV would be used in densely populated urban areas but, in order to keep constituencies from being too large, IRV would be used in more sparsely populated rural areas. Although the House of Commons voted in favour of the proposals five times, the House of Lords continually rejected it until the nationwide effort was ultimately abandoned in parliament.
In 1921 the Government of Ireland Act established two home rule parliaments in Ireland–the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Parliament of Southern Ireland–and while STV was used for regular elections to these bodies IRV was used for by-elections. This combination of IRV and STV has been used in what is now the Republic of Ireland ever since. The Northern Ireland Parliament continued to use the combination until the late 1920s when it switched to the 'first past the post' plurality system. However STV for regular elections, and IRV for by-elections, has been reintroduced and used there to elect devolved assemblies since the 1970s.
IRV is usually referred to in the UK as the 'Alternative Vote' or 'AV'. In 1998 the Jenkins Commission, charged by the government with suggesting an alternative system to plurality, devised a new system called the Alternative Vote Plus (AV+) for elections to the British Parliament. This involved a combination of party-list proportional representation and single seat constituencies elected under IRV. However no action has been taken on the Commission's report. Most electoral reformers in the UK favour one or other form of proportional representation. However the Labour Party minister Peter Hain has written a number of articles advocating IRV for elections to the British Parliament. Electoral scientists have shown that, because of the current distribution of voters across constituencies, had IRV been used in recent British general elections it would have greatly benefited Labour and the Liberal Democrats at the expense of the Conservative Party.
[edit] United States
Instant runoff voting has been passed by voters in at least nine jurisdictions in the United States, including eight consecutive victories in ballot measures in 2004-2006.
In March 2002, an initiative backed by the FairVote passed by referendum making instant runoff voting the means of electing candidates for the Board of Supervisors and most citywide offices in San Francisco. It was first used in that city in October 2004 when 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. Instant runoff voting played a decisive role in at least one city election in 2004, 2005 and 2006 ([2]). Exit polls [3] by San Francisco State University have shown overwhelming support for the new system from all groupings of voters. 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. The Department instead chooses to wait until most absentee ballots have arrived before running instant runoff ballot counts.)
Voters in Ferndale, Michigan and Berkeley, California amended their city charters 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, and the legislature passed a law accepting the change.
In its first use in Burlington, on March 7, 2006, state representative Bob Kiss (Progressive) [4] was elected mayor over better financed challengers. When the first choice rankings were counted, Kiss had 39%; the next highest candidates had 31% (a Democrat) and 26% (a Republican); Kiss won in the second round of counting after the Republican and two other candidates were eliminated.
In 2006, instant runoff voting had several new adoptions ([5]):
- North Carolina adopted legislation to use instant runoff voting for certain vacancy elections and to use it on a pilot basis in up to 10 cities in 2007 and 10 counties in 2008.
- Pierce County, WA, population 760,000, passed instant runoff voting in November 2006 [2] for implementation for most of its county offices in Novem ber 2008; the measure was placed on the ballot by a charter commission.
- Takoma Park, MD adopted instant runoff voting for city council and mayoral elections after an 84% win in a 2005 advisory ballot measure. It held its first IRV election to fill a city council vacancy in January 2007 and for all offices in November 2007; an exit survey [6] by FairVote after the vacancy election found the great majority of voters understood the system and wanted it used for more elections.
- Minneapolis, MN in November 2006 passed instant runoff voting with 65%. Implementation is scheduled for the November 2009 municipal elections.
- Oakland, CA voters passed a measure by 69% to 31% in November 2006 to adopt IRV for its city offices; implementation is scheduled for November 2008.
Suggested by a recent version of Robert's Rules of Order, instant runoff voting is used in the United States for a growing number of non-governmental elections, including student elections at more than half ([7]) of the nation's 30 leading colleges and universities, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report ([8]).
Instant runoff voting received increased attention in the United States during 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, Democratic Senator Barack Obama ([9]),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 part 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 Human Rights Party; the process was used in the 1975 mayoral election.
[edit] Proposals not yet adopted
Dozens have states ([10])have entertained instant runoff voting legislation in recent years. For example, in 2003, an amendment to the California State Constitution was proposed (SCA 14) with wide-ranging goals of election reform, including instant runoff voting for statewide offices. In the state of Washington, activists have been urging adoption of instant runoff voting there for several years; an initiative seeking to adopt instant runoff voting in 2005 failed to garner enough signatures. The city of Vancouver, Washington voted in 1999 to adopt instant runoff voting. The state legislature enacted enabling legislation in 2004, but the city in 2006 chose not to exercise its option. Instant runoff voting has been on a statewide ballot once, in August 2002 in Alaska, where it was defeated.
in the U.S. Congress, the "Voter Choice Act of 2005" H.R.2690 sought to require the use of instant runoff voting for general elections for federal office.
