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Instant Runoff Voting is a voting system that eliminates the possibility of a candidate
winning that does not have a majority. Traditional ("simple majority voting") systems
are flawed in that they allow candidates with only a plurality, not a majority, to win
the election. IRV changes that.
In IRV, voters rank candidates in order, as #1, #2, #3, etc. If there is no immediate majority winner (i.e.,
someone with 50% or more of the #1 votes), then a runoff is tallied without collecting a new round of ballots. This process
will insure that the most popular candidate is elected.
Each runoff is run as follows: Voters rank candidates. The votes are tallied, and if no one candidate has more than 50% of the #1 votes, the candidate with the least #1 votes is eliminated from the race. The second choice votes from these ballots are then added to the tallies of the other candidates, and the process is repeated until someone has a majority of votes. That is why IRV is sometimes called the Single Transferrable Vote system.
You may vote for as few or many of the candidates as you like, and you may write in
a number of candidates as well.
If you would like more information, check out these sources:
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