Talk:Instant-runoff voting/Archive 8

Instant runoff voting fails the Monotonicity criterion
I removed these web references:
 * Visualizations of IRV behavior are available from multiple independent sources.

These appear to be personal websites. They are attempts to "model" voters and no clarity to what they mean in practice. Since the effects of nonmonotonicity IRV are identical to the effects of any runoff process, if they deserve reference it ought to be against all runoffs with forced elimination. I just can't see that this adds any clarity for evaluating the practical reality of IRV and real voter behavior. Tom Ruen (talk) 03:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to note a counter-argument, but not push it at this time. The best known of these sites is that of Ka-Ping Yee, who is a notable expert. Olson is mentioned as a confirming source. Yee diagrams, as they are called, are well-known in the voting methods world, but it is also correct that the sites are "personal web sites." The diagrams illustrate visually the phenomena that various election methods show, and some of them, at least, are well-defined. Remember, this is the Controversies section, so a rewrite would note Yee diagrams as an argument, or support for the monotonicity argument. I think there are also Yee diagrams on the Center for Range Voting web site.


 * The claim that the effects of IRV are identical to the effects of any runoff process is a separate matter, and a huge amount of nonsense has been written on this topic. IRV and top-two runoff produce different results, that is apparent, and voting systems theory leads me to conclude that top-two is superior to IRV. Little-known fact, and FairVote isn't going to tell you, Tom, but IRV was used in the U.S. for political primaries for a time. What was it replaced by? Top-two runoff. Read Robert's Rules on preferential voting compared to runoff elections, then realize that the "elimination" in top-two, generally, isn't. That is no candidate is actually "eliminated." What happens is that the top two get ballot position in the runoff. Voters can still vote for anyone. Now, this may be a moot difference, but the fact is that "comeback" elections are rare with IRV, and take place about one-third the time with TTR. They are *different* methods, and the results show it. TTR is closer to what Robert's Rule recommends. (And, in fact, if Preferential Voting -- a better form than STV -- is used with runoff if there is majority failure, you *have* what Robert's Rules recommends. Fewer runoffs (probably about half or more, depends) and still adherence to democratic norms. --Abd (talk) 12:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, myself, I advocate a "top-two IRV" vs "bottom-up IRV" as a more conservative reform from Plurality, but BOTH are nonmonotonic in the same rare 3-way cases (and even more rare 4+ way cases). The primary reason I object to the diagrams is that they require a degree of understanding that is fully unclear to an average reader. Explaining nonmonotonicity in a simple way is hard enough. Throwing up graphs that have nothing to do with real voters, real elections, don't illuminate. They just confuse. I'd be VERY GLAD if there was a way tp explain these diagrams on Wikipedia but I don't see it. Tom Ruen (talk) 21:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the example here since I don't think the previous one made a lot of sense. The new version shows much more clearly how non-monotonicity can (theoretically) be exploited by a tactical voter. Hope that is ok by all. 81.106.96.164 (talk) 09:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC) andrew

About that American Political Science Association.
I've come to the conclusion that the alleged "adoption" by APSA of "IRV" is truly non-notable, but taking it out will rather gut that section. This factoid has been heavily promoted by FairVote, produced 584 hits today. For example: Massvote.org, a rather confused document, as a "bullet point": "American Political Science Association uses it to elect their president."

Citizens for Instant Runoff Voting in New York State, lists APSA as "endorsing" IRV.

However, Brams notes in Mathematics and Democracy (2008), p. 21, the following, confirming much of what I've written here in the past:


 * Not all societies that have been approached about adopting AV [Approval Voting], including two that I belong to -- The American Political Science Association (APSA) and the International Studies Association (ISA) -- have been amenable to election reform, much less the adoption of AV. Significantly, these societies are dominated, or heavily populated by, academic political scientists; none holds competitive elections unless a petition candidate challenges the official slate (this has never happened in the ISA; in the APSA, the last challenge to a presidential candidate occurred almost forty years ago.

APSA's alleged "adoption of IRV to elect its president" has been promoted heavily by FairVote, as we can see from the google hits, because of the obvious implication: if political scientists use IRV, must be great stuff. But I don't think we would want to imitate, in public elections, or even in private elections such as student body governmental ones, what APSA *actually* uses. Go to the APSA web site and see what they do.

There is a nominating committee appointed by the President. It, presumably by majority vote, names a single nominee for the office. If there is no petition candidate -- which has been the case for the last forty years, according to Brams -- that nominee is formally elected at the annual conference, becoming the "President-elect," and the President the next year. This is how APSA actually elects their President. APSA is about a hundred years old, and at the time it was formed, "preferential voting" was fairly common in the U.S. So they put it into the constitution, to cover the contingency that there is not just one, but two petition candidates. Given that there has been one petition candidate in the last forty years, I can speculate that the frequency is, say, one per fifty years. Two? Well, a rough guess would be one every 2500 years. (It is very hard for petition candidates to win, usually.) And more could be written on this, but I'll spare you. The APSA factoid isn't notable for the purposes of this article, except in the Controversies section, where it just might belong, since the situation is being used as an argument for IRV, a thoroughly deceptive one. And that can be shown by simple reference to reliable source.... Meanwhile, I may start working on this, what to do, with some edits.

One more comment on what APSA actually does. They conduct elections by electronic ballot, so "repeated balloting" as is actually recommended by Robert's Rules of Order would be quite practical. In the election for President, it isn't the President being elected, technically, but the President-elect, there is a whole year until the winner actually becomes the President. Used to be a link to the actual APSA constitution, it has apparently been removed. --Abd (talk) 13:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it is objectively important to point out that the national association of political scientists will use IRV if it has a three-candidate race for president. It's quite reflective of where political scientists are on IRV. Also, can you find actual association elections that do mail voting or internet voting with repeated balloting if no on wins a majority of initial choices? Far more use IRV and accept a majority of the final round as determinative.


 * Also, Abd, check out FairVote's link on universities and colleges. We now know of at least 41 colleges and universities where student governments use instant runoff voting, as documented on our site -- that's more than "several." I see someone else changed this, but note that you can verify yourself.


 * RRichie (talk) 22:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't write "several," I wrote "a number," replacing "numerous." You say "at least 41." Another edit has now replaced my "a number" with "a few dozen." Now, I've never checked out the list on FairVote in detail, but, unless there is some problem with it, I'm fine with "a few dozen," which is suitable vague while still giving the order of magnitude. The reason I touched it was that "numerous" had a promotional ring to it, we all know about that, the impression of a wave of adoptions and elections when, in fact, a tiny percentage of elections are involved. How many schools and universities are there? Quite simply, no big deal.


 * As to APSA, certainly you'd want to make the point you just made. APSA is allegedly important because of the impression it gives. After all, if political scientists use it, must be great stuff. It's kind of like the Robert's Rules issue. When you look at the details, it vanishes. Anyway, you are claiming that this is important because political scientists "will use IRV." Now, if what political scientists do is some kind of guide to how to do elections, perhaps we should adopt what APSA actually does. Don't you think that's a great idea? Brams mentions, by the way, that APSA hasn't had a contested election -- i.e., a petition candidate -- for almost forty years. If we assume that the frequency of a petition candidate is once every 40 years, we could estimate the occurrence of *two* petition candidates in the same election as being once every 1600 years, and that is what it would take for them to use "IRV." Two candidates by petition. Now, the really interesting offices that are elected by APSA are the Council members. These are contested elections. They elect three members every year. What method do they use? What do political scientists think, allegedly, is best? Plurality. Three to be elected, vote for three. Top three candidates win. No preferential ballot.


 * No, Rob, the claim is corrupt. What political scientists do in their organization has practically nothing to do with what they think is best outside of their organization. But if I'm wrong, Rob, should we start promoting Plurality? After all, they actually run those elections, whereas 39 years out of the last 40 there hasn't been a presidential poll at all. If political scientists were to amend the APSA constitution now to use IRV, and if it had been debated, I'd think it pretty notable. But that constitution could have been written a century ago. The constitution refers to the method as "the standard method of the alternative vote." That's probably referring to what was de courant at the time.


 * No, I don't know if any associations do mail balloting by preferential voting and require a majority. I just know that Robert's Rules requires that. Associations can do what they like, Robert's Rules does not control them. I think, however, that there may be more associations using Approval Voting, which is more likely to find a majority, than IRV. I wonder, how many are there for each. We mention APSA, though it hasn't actually used preferential ballot, uses Plurality every year for other offices than President, and has unopposed elections for President. Then there is the ACS. I guess it's time I look at that claim also.


 * Wow! Glad I looked. Rather complicated. There are two official nominees, so the standard method is a single choice ballot. However, if there are three, i.e., one petition candidate, then contingent vote is used, which is arguably "instant runoff voting." But what I find truly interesting is that if there are four or more nominees, well, read it:


 * When there are four or more candidates, a single choice ballot shall be used. In the event that no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, a run-off election conducted in the same manner as the first election shall be held between the two leading candidates. On or before November 15, the Executive Director shall send to each member of the SOCIETY a ballot containing the names of the two candidates receiving the most votes in the first election. The candidate receiving the greater number of votes shall be declared elected. (10/19/04)


 * Top-two runoff. Go figure. Now, what do they use most? Members have the option of voting by internet. In 2007, as reported on their web site, there were two nominees for each office, except for Director-at-Large, there were four, of which two were elected. Well, there is a place where they might have used STV. Did they? No, the election rules for that office: vote for two. The two candidates with the most votes win. Plurality at large.


 * ACS uses preferential voting *only* if there are three candidates, not less and not more. They quote the same section of Robert's Rules that you've been spreading -- without the full explanation. I can tell that you've been there! But they didn't adopt IRV in general. Just for one situation. How often does this happen? The system has been set up to discourage it, same as APSA. Looking at the 2008 election, not yet done, the same number of candidates, so no IRV. I looked back at 2006. Same story, except *four* candidates for President-elect. So top-two runoff, I'd think.


 * I don't think the ACS is a "notable use," any more than APSA is. Gonna be a big hole in the article, I think. Now, what about that Chancellor of Oxford University? Surely someone is elected by IRV! From the document referenced in the article:


 * The voting system to be used is the single transferable vote. This is the simplest of all forms of proportional representation and is also sometimes known as the `Alternative Vote'. The aim is to ensure that the winning candidate has the broadest possible support rather than simply being the candidate preferred by the largest minority of voters. Voters are asked to indicate which candidate they would most wish to see elected, but they are also invited to rank the remaining candidates according to their preferred outcome assuming their first preference does not win. (Such further ranking is optional—the voter may, for example, make no further rankings, may indicate only his or her second preference, or may rank most or all of the candidates. No ballot paper is regarded as spoilt if it contains only a first preference.) Initially only first preferences are counted, and if any candidate has an absolute majority at that stage, he or she is elected immediately. If there is no such outright winner, the candidate who gained the least first preferences is eliminated from the election. That candidate's ballots are redistributed by being added to the tallies for the remaining candidates according to any second preferences marked on them. If there is still no candidate with an absolute majority, the new lowest scoring candidate is eliminated, and ballots again redistributed (taking account of third preferences on the ballots of the second candidate to be eliminated where those ballots have already been redistributed from the first candidate to be eliminated). This cycle is repeated until such time as a candidate has gained an absolute majority, that is, 50 per cent of the votes plus one.


 * No specification of what is done with exhausted ballots. The method is Optional Preferential Voting, so majority failure is possible. Now, I looked for documents from the next year, and the first thing I found noted this: "(b) The form of the voting-paper, and the method of casting votes, shall be prescribed by the Vice-Chancellor." So the information from the previous year was possibly one-time. And, searching, I found no evidence that this was repeated.


 * I certainly did not expect to find this. Every example of IRV use in an NGO in this section is flawed, not notable. I'm afraid they all have to go. Unless someone can come up with an organization which actually uses IRV! (That bylaws provide that under rare situations IRV is to be used does not make the application notable.) Quite simply, all of these supposedly notable applications aren't, they are trivia. --Abd (talk) 01:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

RRichie restored the NGO material that I removed, adding more explanatory text. The issue isn't accuracy. The issue is notability. If some organization has buried in its constitution a 100-year-old legal provision, not being used and, quite possibly, never having been used, that uses a voting method in a hypothetical situation which it is not even close to encountering, it is not notable, it is trivia. There is only one reason I can see to be attached to the APSA mention. It has the appearance of recommendation. Let's put it this way. If this is a recommendation, it was one made by a group of political scientists perhaps a hundred years ago -- it would be nice to know *when* it was inserted. There were many, many political scientists, over the years, making many different recommendations about voting methods. I found an article once, published in a journal in New Zealand, raking the Ware method over the coals. That might be interesting for historical reasons. But that a society of political scientists, a long time ago, put a provision in their bylaws, never used as far as we know, and therefore not subject to any kind of active review (organizations don't go through the substantial trouble of amending constitutions unless there is a problem), doesn't constitute any kind of recommendation at all. If this belongs anywhere on Wikipedia, it belongs in the History article. Even there, probably not notable enough. The place where it is notable is in the Controversies section, because the fact that the "standard method of the Alternative Vote" is mentioned in the APSA bylaws is repeated, over and over, in FairVote propaganda, often with text that explicitly makes it into a recommendation.

In fact, see these:

''Further, the American Political Science Association, which includes the psephologists (voting experts) uses IRV to elect its officers.'' (I don't know if many psephologists belong to APSA, but the point is clear. This is an implied recommendation by voting experts. But, in fact, APSA doesn't use IRV at all, and the fallback provision in case a meteor strikes the headquarters is only for the President. APSA uses Plurality to elect all other officers, if there is a contested election.

Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen's Guide to Voting Systems has "IRV is also used by ... [APSA] to elect their officials." This is considered notable enough to put in a book. Why? Because the author believes that it is "used." Your propaganda has been quite effective, Rob. Who checks? Well, Wikipedia editors are supposed to, but ... so many facts, so little time!

IRV is currently being used in Ireland for its presidential election, Australia to elect its House of Representatives, and the American Political Science Association to elect its president..... Spin doctors know that what people remember is not what they see or read, but what they think about it and how they feel about it. So even if they read a cautiously worded phrase that is accurate, "provides in its constitution," what they will remember is "uses." In this particular mention, by Common Cause of Massachusetts, the alleged APSA use is placed along with truly notable uses. Clearly the author believed it notable, and believed that it was actually being used.

''The system is also used to elect the president of Ireland, the mayor of London, the Australian House of Representatives and in other countries throughout the world. It is used by many professional organizations including the American Political Science Association.'' Ferndale IRV.

IRV is used to elect the parliament in Australia and the presidents of the Republic of Ireland and the American Political Science Association.

American Political Science Association uses it to elect their president. I quoted this above, this quote is from MassVote.org, and is a bullet point in a list of usages, and all of the others are quite notable. Again, the author clearly believed that APSA was *using* IRV, not that it was a never-used provision in the constitution. Plus, of course, if you look at what election method APSA actually uses, routinely, every year, it's Plurality.

The above examples were just from the first page of many google hits for "American political science association" instant runoff voting.

But the most telling example of all, Rob, is your testimony before the Vermont House of Representatives:


 * Among private organization elections using instant runoff voting, perhaps the most instructive is the American Political Science Association (APSA), the organization of political science professors. Recognizing that the voting system cannot be manipulated and is a fair, simple way to elect a majority winner from a field of candidates, the APSA uses IRV to elect its national president.

Of course, that testimony was false, but, as usual, sufficiently deniable that you'd escape prosecution. Technically, this is "puffery," and isn't usually considered fraud. (1) they don't "use" IRV in the same sense as other examples do. (2) no recognition is involved, you made that up as a reason; now, if you've read the implementation arguments, way back, please share them with us! -- but I think you simply made it up. (3) IRV doesn't elect majority winners when the runoff provisions are used, most of the time, unless the ballot rules require full ranking. And, of course, (4) APSA, again, doesn't use IRV. It provides for it under an insanely rare contingency (given the rest of their structure), a contingency which may not have occurred in the entire history of APSA, a century. Here you are noting the APSA usage specifically as if it were a recommendation. That is typical spin doctor deceptive speech, leading readers to conclusions you desire through manipulating impressions. I don't know that you do this consciously, but, given what I've found when I look beneath the hood, it is very, very common with what you have written. You make your living doing this. "Political activist."

Richie, you have a list of organizations or activities allegedly using IRV on your FairVote site,. Were these three links the most solid you had? I'd be astonished, but it would not be the first time I've been astonished at what I found when I tried to verify FairVote-supplied facts. The APSA text was perfect for propaganda. Hey, anyone could follow the link and look through the constitution and there it is. How many people would go further and look for actual usage? How many would look at the details and realize that this is covering a contingency that isn't likely to occur in a thousand years? Given that preferential vote is indeed a notable method, I'd think there would be some organizations actually using IRV, in real elections. Having them listed would be quite appropriate. You've got the student government listings. What is needed is reference to actual elections. This is important because we need to see what IRV is *doing*, not just know that some words are sitting unused in constitutions and bylaws. There is lots of much more notable stuff that isn't in the article. For example, IRV was used for party primary elections in some states, for years. What happened? What replaced it? Why? What was the debate over it, if any? This takes real research, the information probably is not on the internet. ("Research" in this case means going to libraries, mostly, and digging up reliable sources.)

One more point I realized while writing the above. The ACS provision is interesting. I wondered, why use IRV in only the special case of exactly three candidates? Why use top-two runoff? Well, if there is broad usage of the second rank, (and the ACS is using Contingent Vote, really), the method is likely to find a majority winner. Do you have any information on the debate over this, Rob? --Abd (talk) 14:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I was just over at range voting to see what it says about such things. I made some changes in the spirit of your attempts at rigor here. I would urge you to do more, as its examples hold up far less well to scrutiny than these examples, which indeed are in these organizations' bylaws and constitutions. Given how much you like range voting and approval voting, shouldt't you make sure non-misleading information is provided there? Say hello to Kathy Dopp as you help her with anti-IRV screeds, by the way.


 * I'll come back to this later.
 * RRichie (talk) 18:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm.... http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Kathy Dopp is better worrier than me, but she doesn't seem to put equal worry to Plurality or supposed alternatives to IRV. I'm not very impressed by her claimed analysis. Wondrous references:
 * ''xxviii IRV is basically a more complicated way to achieve the same results as today’s plurality elections. Abd Rahman Lomax did a write-up on this that is posted on-line. See “Review of the election results available for San Francisco Ranked Choice Voting elections.” http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/majority.html
 * It's funny to me that some complain that IRV is bad because it "changes the winners", while others like above say its bad because it doesn't change the winners. Very funny stuff. Tom Ruen (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, Tom. Life is complicated. Get over it. There are opponents of IRV because it supposedly will allow Communists to win or something almost as bad, like the Human Rights Party in Ann Arbor. It's obvious to me that IRV did a good job there, it is the one job, in fact, that it is good at: dealing with a small-scale spoiler effect. But if you look at the Australian experience -- you know, Tom, sometimes I really wonder how much you are willing to learn about this topic -- Optional Preferential Voting reproduces the results of Plurality, generally. Exceptions are rare. That's also what I found in the U.S., with nonpartisan elections. I have not looked enough at the Australian partisan elections. Actually, Tom, if you looked closely at what was found by that author, whose name is suspiciously close to mine, IRV is changing the results. To Plurality results from what were more democratic, by Robert's Rules' standards, Top-Two runoff results. I estimate that it is happening in about one out of ten elections. Have you been paying attention? --Abd (talk) 05:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The accuracy and fairness of the article on Range voting has little or nothing to do with this article. Instant-runoff voting is far more notable, and, as such, the article is far more important. I didn't write most of the Range Voting article. Slowly, as better sources become available, there is better information appearing in the voting systems articles. Kathy Dopp, for those who might be interested, is a voting security expert who became concerned about what she started to realize was a heavy propaganda campaign for instant-runoff voting. And, yes, she asked for my comments on propaganda that had been posted to a mailing list in response to her report on instant runoff voting. The same misleading statements that we have been able to get out of this article continue to be repeated as fact, over and over, including the Robert's Rules and APSA canards. I'm the leader of no voting movement, I'm an independent commentator, Rob Richie is the Executive Director of FairVote, he could, if he wanted to, exert a moderating influence over his supporters. --Abd (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, thanks, Rob, for a helpful edit to Range voting. Indeed, that kind of accuracy is useful there as well as here. --Abd (talk) 18:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest adding a mention of the American Psychological Association along side the mention of the APSA. The APA's rules insure that there are always five (or more?) nominated candidates for the presidency so elections are always contested. Nomination is by ballot, counted using something similar to Australian "bottoms up" (eliminate losers until you have the right number of winners left, no threshold and no surplus transfers). The APA also uses STV for multi-seat elections with nominations by a Borda count --but that probably belongs in the STV article, not here. Sources:


 * http://www.apa.org/governance/bylaws/art10.html
 * http://www.apa.org/governance/rules/assocrules.pdf, Section 110


 * I also suggest that someone with knowledge of NGO's outside the United States supply information on the use of the Alternative Vote in organizations in other countries. As it stands, the paragraph we're talking about is too limited to the U.S.Bob Richard (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I tried to find examples of usage by the APA, the situation isn't as easy as with APSA. If you can find reports of actual elections, it would be interesting. It would be the first actual elections pursuant to bylaws reported in the article (for NGOs)! I think you may have missed the point. It's not notable that APSA has that provision in its bylaws. They aren't using it and probably won't be using it. By the way, welcome to Wikipedia, Bob. If you'd like to help with this article, it would be useful if you would read over Talk and the Talk archives. But it's a lot of material! And you certainly aren't obligated to read it. It would simply make you more informed about the issues, about what we can agree upon and what has been difficult. --Abd (talk) 12:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Oxford Chancellor election.
Upon examining the sources for the election of the Chancellor of Oxford University, I concluded, first of all, that this was a one-time election. How did it happen? Well, the rules provide that the Vice-Chancellor alone determines the method of voting, and apparently the Vice-Chancellor decided to use STV. It was a single election, set no precedent, involved no decision by a large group (and the group voting was how large?). It was, essentially, a single experimental use and is not notable in the context of this article. With a bit more flesh, it might be appropriate for the article on History. What happened?

I had removed the mention, but COI editor RRichie undid my edit. Improper for a COI editor to do that. Please don't do that again, Rob. *Ask* and *advise* here in Talk. In the end, it is the same, if you are correct, it just takes a little longer if I stubbornly resist an edit that complies with policy.

The motive for a COI editor to want that in the article is obvious: it seems to confer praise of the method, that it was accepted and used by such a prestigious institution. However, when we look closely, it was a decision by a single person who, for all we know, knew little about voting methods, or was biased, or, of course, did know and actually approved in spite of that, there are a few experts who are like that. It's the same with APSA, and to a lesser degree with ACS (why is the number of members of ACS mentioned? because it looks better for IRV if it's a large number. Even if no elections are actually being held. -- and I don't know that there are any elections being held with ACS. I found one election that, if I understood the rules, would have been held with top-two runoff.)

As I stated before, I intend to take those out, I'm waiting for cogent arguments to the contrary, pursuant to notability guidelines, to appear. So far, none.--Abd (talk) 17:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I thinks the Oxford election was notable. Tens of thousands of votes cast in a competitive election that was publicized widely at the time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.51.65 (talk) 13:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Any source for that? There have been, by the way, I suspect, millions of votes cast in IRV elections in the U.S, and hundreds of millions of them in elections in Australian and other places. Given that the other usages in this section don't show any actual usage, what organizations are actually using IRV other than the student ones? What is the most notable actual usage? As I stated, the Oxford election might be sufficiently notable for the History article. And what happened with this Oxford election? Did it go into instant runoff? So far, I haven't seen much. And I've looked. But, of course, I could easily have missed stuff. --Abd (talk) 15:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Abd -- here's an article about the election and how it went multiple rounds, ending when there were still three candidates left, but one with a majority of votes in that round. See on example among many here:
 * http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/telegraph031803.htm
 * Also, here is more on the chancellors -- these are notable folks
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chancellors_of_the_University_of_Oxford
 * Lots of other notable uses in the UK. Party leaders are often elected by it. Labour had a very feisty election wiht -- see round by round results posted here, a BBC news article and the Wikipedia entry on the race:
 * http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/news.php?ex=0&nid=77
 * http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6234692.stm
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_deputy_leadership_election,_2007
 * RRichie (talk) 22:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm still not happy with the paucity of detail available on the Oxford election. Single-winner STV is in use in a lot of places far, far more notable in terms of the election method. It was a one-time election, at the discretion of a single individual. The news report from your site gives precious little detail about the election. What were the first round totals? Did it make any difference at all that the election was STV? The previous one was plurality. Apparently, it's been fairly normal to not allow a lot of candidates.... Rob, are there any nongovernmental organizations running IRV elections, not just in theory, not just once because one person wanted to try it, but regularly? I think you want to use APSA, ACS, and Oxford because of the prestige of the organizations, not because the application is notable. You know perfectly well that the alleged APSA usage has been advertised as being important because "political scientists use it," when the fact is that the political scientists who made the decision, if I've got it right, are long gone; preferential voting of various forms was the rage in the U.S., as you know, a long time back, when APSA was young.


 * I'm not heavily insisting on keeping the Oxford election out. But I would make sure that it is clear that this was a one-time election at the discretion of a single individual. In England, as you know, STV is not uncommon, it's not such a big deal as it is here when there is a use for this or that. Was this big news in England? Were there headlines, "Oxford Uses AV!"? I don't see the level of commentary that I'd expect if it was notable. What I'm saying, Rob, is that if this is all you've got, that's pitiful! I'm *sure* there are better examples, though, in fact, I haven't seen them. It's not like STV is an obscure method. --Abd (talk) 01:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

About that COI thing
Also... Abd, it's easy for you to throw around the COI label, but let's deal with facts. We can do that and try to get to an objective understanding. Note that we still aren't there on Robert's Rules, say. You continue to suggest that its description of IRV lays out that a winner's final round majority needs to be a first round majority when in fact the description says does no such thing. (To read it your way you have to leapfrog several sentences after the clear description of a classic IRV count to add in your interpretation as if its an intrinsic part of their description -- that's now the obvious way to read it and I think it's instructive that you can't find a single active use of IRV that follows your reading while I have plenty that do it the way I think Robert's Rules is suggesting it). You challenge as "not notable" something as high-profile as IRV's use to elect the Oxford chancellor -- even though you can be sure you would think it would make sense to tout such a use if the system was one of your favorites, approval voting and range voting. It's obvious you edit this article from a hostile position to IRV (you actively work to oppose IRV and advise the nation's biggest opponents of IRV) even as you let lots of sloppy work be presented in Wikipedia on the voting methods you support, approval voting and range voting. Wouldn't it make sense for you to spend a little time getting those articles right with the same degree of scrutiny you give to things like APSA, ACS and Oxford Chancellor elections? Let's debate this article and its edits on merits and not pretend that you come at this from any less of an opinion than I do. And note: I get paid to run FairVote, but I don't get paid to do Wikipedia editing. I'm sure my board would rather I not do this and focus on the myriad of things I need to do. I do this generally at odd hours (late or on weekends) because I care about this being debated fairly and accurately and really have problems when objective truths like Oxford, APSA and the rest are dismissed. You'll note that I pretty much never post anything here except updating some factual developr or reacting to some attempt by you to twist the article your way. RRichie (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There are several issues here. It might be better to keep them organized. I did create a new section header to separate this out from the Oxford thing, and I will create some new headers because, above, Richie raises some new topics. Here I'll address the COI issue. There is no doubt, Rob, that you are COI on this issue. I've seen ArbComm topic ban people who did less than you've done. It's simple: you are the Executive Director of FairVote, and you have devoted over a decade of your life to promoting Instant-runoff voting. There might be some people who could be objective with that history, but it would be unusual. What Wikipedia policy suggests -- and it will be enforced if need be -- is that you abstain from contentious editing. So when you "react" to what you see as "some attempt" by me "to twist the article" my way, by reverting me, you are contentiously editing. That is exactly what you must not do. If I'd wanted to see you blocked, it could have been arranged. But I don't, and you have always backed off when warned. (That is, after the first incident when you, as an IP editor, were blocked.) Whether you get paid to "do Wikipedia editing" or not isn't relevant. You have a clear conflict of interest.


 * I am not under any obligation to edit any article, nor is any editor. It's a community project. I've made small improvements, here and there, to those articles, and I've undone some of the damage done by Yellowbeard, though by no means have I addressed all of it. The fact, though, is that Instant-runoff voting is more notable, and therefore more important that the article be accurate and balanced. I agree, there are problems with both the Range voting article and the Approval voting article, though they are problems, for the most part, on a different level. There are problems with the whole class of voting systems articles, and the paradox is that the encyclopedia is probably better without those problems being fixed. The problems have to do with technical compliance with sourcing guidelines. It drives some people up the wall: Wikipedia is quite inconsistent in enforcing the guidelines, but that's why they are called guidelines, they are not bureaucratic regulations. Right now, Schulze method is being used to elect some WikiMedia Foundation Board members. I'm sure that lots of very experienced Wikipedia editors, adminstrators, bureaucrats, and developers have read that article. It has sourcing problems. Looks like nobody is fixing them.


 * As a result of all the work I've done on this article, though, I've come to an unexpected conclusion. Instant-runoff voting is being promoted as "better than Plurality," but the applications, for the most part, are replacement of top-two runoff, not plurality, by IRV. There is an Australian voting systems expert who is starting to realize what's going on: what is being sold in the U.S., as if it were the same as what they use in Australia, is actually quite different. It's those little details, Rob, they can make a big difference. IRV is worse than top-two runoff, by nearly every measure, possibly including cost. There are far better ways to reduce cost and improve top-two runoff performance than IRV, and you know, quite well, two of them: Approval or Bucklin in the primary. Given how cheap those methods are to implement, especially Approval -- there is no cost -- it's a shame that what was the most democratic single-winner election method in the U.S., top-two runoff, is being replaced by a method which functions, in these nonpartisan elections, quite like Plurality, supposedly to reduce cost. Top-two runoff, in some places, is exactly what Robert's Rules requires -- repeated balloting, at least two stages of it if needed. What would have been honest, in San Francisco, would have been to leave the majority requirement in the law. Of course, there still would have been some runoffs. A little fewer still, with Bucklin, and a lot less implementation cost. Same ballot, and usually the same winners. And then the runoffs take care of those budding comeback elections. Majority failure tells us that the process is not properly done yet.


 * Comeback elections are a very important feature of our democracy, and one of the two important objections Robert's Rules has to STV is that it may complete in one ballot what perhaps should not complete yet. Regardless, as a method which can elect, and does elect about one-third of the time, by a mere plurality of the votes cast, IRV is not showing any "instant* equivalents to comeback elections.


 * It really does happen that a relative unknown candidate manages to claw her way up to second place; it is easier to do that than to go all the way to first place. And then, with the exposure and voter consideration in the runoff, she wins. IRV "deprives" -- that's the word RRONR uses -- voters of the opportunity to base later decisions on earlier results. Further, it's possible for a candidate who is "eliminated" in the primary to come back as a write-in and win. Indeed, were it not for the fact that some of her supporters did not correctly mark the ballot, a candidate in San Diego recently would have done just that. (They were supposed to check the box for write-in and write the name in, and they just wrote the name in.) San Diego responded by prohibiting write-ins in the runoff, but, apparently, the default in California is that write-ins are allowed in the runoff, which means that there are no real eliminations, *just like Robert's Rules prefers.* Rob, your campaign is damaging democracy in the U.S., undoing the work of the last century, where IRV was replaced with top-two runoff, *a better method, fairer and more democratic.* I'm not sure how relevant this is to this article, though. You don't see me putting this stuff in the article, just what can be reliably sourced. --Abd (talk) 03:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

About Robert's Rules again
RRichie wrote, above,


 * Note that we still aren't there on Robert's Rules, say. You continue to suggest that its description of IRV lays out that a winner's final round majority needs to be a first round majority when in fact the description says does no such thing.

What I say here is that Robert's Rules requires a "majority of votes cast," and it has a very clear meaning for that, and it's not a "first round majority," that would be other parliamentary systems. It's a majority of all non-blank ballots. Any parliamentarian familiar with Robert's Rules would have read the section that way, because that's what "majority" means to Robert's Rules, unless there is some other specification. But am I placing some interpretation along these lines in the article? No. What's in the article is almost entirely exact quotation, with no interpretation as Richie is claiming. What Richie apparently wants to do is to just quote from the first part, which doesn't specify what "majority" means. Due to that being missing -- and it wasn't necessary, since it is specified elsewhere -- many readers, including myself at first, by the way, simply assumed that it meant a majority of votes for continuing candidates. But then Robert's Rules goes on to contradict this, and it isn't unclear at all, it's not an interpretation, it just happens to coincide with my interpretation based on what I know of parliamentary procedure.


 * (To read it your way you have to leapfrog several sentences after the clear description of a classic IRV count to add in your interpretation as if its an intrinsic part of their description -- that's now the obvious way to read it and I think it's instructive that you can't find a single active use of IRV that follows your reading while I have plenty that do it the way I think Robert's Rules is suggesting it).

But it doesn't matter how I read it. I'm not interpreting it, I've just presented it, as it is. Robert's Rules describes an option. That option requires, they state, a bylaw revision. If the bylaw revision is just exactly what Robert's Rules says, and interpreting it consistently with definitions of majority elsewhere, reinforced by the mention of the election having to be repeated if a majority is not found -- which is a mathematical impossibility if Richie's interpretation is correct -- it would be precisely what I've been claiming. Has anyone done this? How would I know? The bylaws I've read do *not* implement what's in RRONR.

Look, the Australians have this exactly correct: they require what they call an "absolute majority" with PV, which means what we call here simple majority of legal votes. They can do that without having majority failure because they require complete ranking; if a ballot isn't completely ranked, it is not a legal ballot. Then, with Optional Preferential Voting, they change the language to be specific that the quota needed for election is a majority of all votes for continuing candidates. In order to make this clear, the bylaws I've seen here are mostly explicit about this, thus allowing an election by plurality. Which is the very thing that Robert's Rules deplores.

I don't need to find an example of an application. The mention in the article is about a description by Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 10th edition. It's not about actual applications. If we were interpreting this in the text, indeed, it would be problematic if the actual applications showed something different. But we aren't. We are just quoting the text, with minimal summary language used. If you've got a problem with any of the summary, by all means, object. Summarization was used only to make it shorter, and definitely not to distort or twist it. Rob, your arguments on this show clear bias. --Abd (talk) 03:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Found this: proposed student government preferential voting regulations. It is very explicit on the issue, in a note: ''Only a full preference ballot ensures that in IRV/STV allocation, every ballot has a place to be allocated in every round. Otherwise, ballots may become exhausted and unallocated, potentially resulting in no majority or Quota in the final round.'' --Abd (talk) 03:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Pro and Con list
The "Is IRV better than other winner-take-all systems?" section is a pro and con list. Structures like this should be avoided; we can describe supportive and critical arguments along with the rest of the article. -- E x p l o d i c l e TC 17:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC) ''Sidenote: This may sound like a strange request, but if you wouldn't mind, please place any responses over 250 words in a show/hide template. -- E x p l o d i c l e TC 17:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)''


 * Yes, it is a strange request. :-) That section was recently merged in from an article in a deletion debate, which as discussion suggests that the guideline is overruled by a pro and con list is allowed. If it were merged in to the rest of the article, I wouldn't be sad but I don't think I would be very glad either, so I am fixing the section tag.  That section needs work.  For example, "IRV will eliminate some of the spoiler effect." 76.246.151.181 (talk) 17:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Now that I've fixed it, I feel like it shouldn't even be there. I'm going to comment the section tag out. 76.246.151.181 (talk) 17:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You may have noticed I was involved in the AfD, but I don't recall the guideline being overruled. I put this issue on hold until the AfD was resolved, and now I think it should be addressed. Why do you think we should continue to organize the article with pro and con lists? -- Explodicle (T/C) 17:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

What is in the article may appear to be a Pro and Con list, but, compared to such lists that I've seen, it is not. Rather, arguments are simply organized according to whether or not they are commonly used by those arguing Pro or Con. Each argument then, in theory, becomes an NPOV examination of that argument. Who says it? That should be cited. What does the argument mean? I.e., what facts or notable opinions are involved that we can reliably source.

This is not the only way that this could be organized. It was simply one of the easiest. But it isn't what is ordinarily a pro and con bullet pointed list. It should be understood that sometimes editors with a POV have altered the arguments to make them more supportable than what is actually being claimed in political campaigns for implementation. It has not been extensively argued, by Pro sources, that IRV will fix "some of" the spoiler effect. The "arguments" in the section headers are *not* NPOV statements, if taken out of context. However, the article does not state what the IP user claimed it said. It says "Arguments made in favor of IRV: it is claimed that IRV will eliminate the Spoiler effect." Which is true, and is verifiable. It is claimed. And the section, properly, should source the claim. *In context* the full text is correct, and reliably sourced -- if it is, I'm not looking right now, just talking principle and intention -- and should not be changed without some better reliable source behind it. I may be reverting an extensive series of changes just made without sufficient discussion. --Abd (talk) 18:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not doubting the factual accuracy of the section, but that doesn't mean we are immune to future POV problems; we should be giving all sides their due weight. Since you're open to the idea of reorganizing, would you object if I thought up a more specific proposal and posted it here? -- Explodicle (T/C) 15:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course I wouldn't object to proposals here! The Pro and Con organization was intended to be easy to confirm in its mini-lead. (And each "pro" and "con" argument should be sourced to a neutral source or to a notable advocacy organization or person, though I'd be open to the idea that a plethora of arguments from verifiable but individually non-notable sources like letters to the editor of newspapers would establish an argument as being one actually made. What we want to avoid is arguments, here, massaged to make them seem more reasonable, but not being how they are actually presented -- and that's been done in the past, I haven't checked the current text -- or straw man arguments, as used to be the only negative argument presented in the article, with pro arguments being, essentially, propaganda or polemic stated as fact in various places in the article. It really used to be a mess!) --Abd (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I misunderstood the meaning of an edit summary, and I may not need to make any reverts except maybe one small one, which I will also source, looks like source was missing (probably because the argument is a very well-known one.) Explodicle is acting absolutely correctly to discuss this issue here. (And the extensive P changes were actually very little net change, which I will review later.)--Abd (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC) --Abd (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't actually gotten around to proposing a plan for over a year now, so I've tagged the sections in question to get some more eyes on the issue. -- Explodicle (T/C) 18:04, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Intro too short
The old four-paragraph intro did an insufficient job of summarizing most of the sections of the article, but a case could be made that it touched some of the most important parts, in particular, places where IRV is used and described. What else in the article is more important than that? 76.246.151.181 (talk) 17:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I see what happened now. User:Tomruen moved that material deeper. I'll move it back. There may be other edits involved, because the moved material was a summary of what is elsewhere in the article, and there may thus be other edits that consolidated material now redundant in the body. That move was improper, I'd say. I think I remember seeing it, but I was busy.... --Abd (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

removed material possibly mixed with intro material.
I took out the following material from history and examples of usage:

CONVERTED TO LIST HERE:
 * 1) At a national level IRV is used to elect the Australian House of Representatives, the President of Ireland, the national parliament of Papua New Guinea and the Fijian House of Representatives.
 * 2) In the United States, it is used in four local jurisdictions, including San Francisco, California and has been approved by voters in other jurisdictions such as Minneapolis, Minnesota and Pierce County, Washington.
 * 3) In the United Kingdom, IRV is used for elections for leaders of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, while the supplementary vote form of IRV is used for all direct elections of mayors in England, including for the Mayor of London. New Zealand cities using IRV include the capital, Wellington.
 * 4) IRV is used in a number of non-governmental elections, including elections for the Canadian Wheat Board and student government in universities.
 * 5) Today IRV is used in Australia for elections to the Federal House of Representatives, and for the lower houses of all Australian States and Territories except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, which use Single transferable vote. It is also used for the Legislative Council of Tasmania.
 * 6) In the Pacific, IRV is used for the Fijian House of Representatives, and Papua New Guinea has adopted it for its parliamentary elections.
 * 7) IRV is also used to elect the President of Ireland and for municipal elections in various places in Australia, Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand -- such as mayoral elections in New Zealand's capital city of Wellington
 * 8) In Canada it is used for Canadian Wheat Board elections and was used for the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership election, 2006.

end removed text

Some of this material may be appropriate to reinsert. Some of it was just text previously moved from the intro, and now put back. I'll be reviewing it, but much of this may simply belong in the subarticles, only the most notable material should be here. Canadian Wheat Board? A single instance of usage in a political party? Maybe. Fine for the subarticle, much more questionable here. (These trial usages occasionally take place, and the usual outcome is not terribly interesting, since IRV will usually reproduce Plurality results. But it is very interesting to FairVote, since they can wave another banner of "success.") Australian usage is highly notable. Irish a bit less so, but, I'd say, still notable. It goes rapidly downhill from there. What does "numerous" elections mean? 1 out of 10? 1 out of 100? 1 out of 1,000? 1 out of 10,000? Given how many elections take place every year, "a handful" might be more accurate! The weasel language, if it is going to be used, should be reliably sourced and attrbuted. Otherwise it is synthesis. 'Nuff said for now. --Abd (talk) 20:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm grateful to Tom for doing the archiving thing, but, after thinking about it and looking at the difference, I'm going to revert his reformatting of this section, I think it makes it very hard to read. --Abd (talk) 21:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, for readability, a list makes the most sense, especially expecting parts will be returned to article. Tom Ruen (talk) 00:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Fine. Here's what I suggest: when we come to an agreement about each piece (or if an editor boldly puts it back or somewhere else, like on one of the subpages, if it's not already there), we use strike-out to show that it isn't relevant any more. This will also show, of course, visible proof of our excellent census process.--Abd (talk) 01:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd agree focus should be on places it's been used for the most elections, or longest period, and perhaps that information should be included in each case? Well, I'm interested anyway, what the into should have I'm not sure. Tom Ruen (talk) 02:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed some external links.
Recently, some external links were added to "advocacy organizations," which apparently means, here, organizations advocating IRV. I removed quite a few as not being appropriate for this article, which is about IRV in general (not just in the U.S.) Some of these links might go, perhaps, with IRV implementations in United States. There may be one or two of them which could come back, please suggest here. There many also be some excess links under Opposition positions.

As an example of a totally inappropriate "external link," there was a so-called external link for Green Party (United States) If it were relevant, that would be a See Also, not an External Link. A host of local IRV advocacy organizations is totally inappropriate for this article, unless they are somehow specially notable or host pages that should be linked here. A link to a list of local advocacy organizations hosted by FairVote would be fine, as far as I'm concerned. One link instead of a dozen. ==Abd (talk) 04:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Abd, your removal of links to advocacy organizations was selective and not supported by WP:LINKFARM. Why are there still 6 links to Green-Armytage's anti-IRV site? Yellowbeard 18:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I mostly removed links to local advocacy organizations that provide no additional information (except local "news") about IRV. Given that FairVote will have all this, the extra links aren't needed. This site is about Instant Runoff Voting, the voting method. There is an article, mentioned above, IRV implementations in United States, where these sites might be more relevant, though, still, a single link to FairVote will cover it. See prior discussion at, particularly the last.

James Green-Armytage's site is one that describes election methods in general. It is not an anti-IRV site. I am aware that my removal could result in some imbalance, and would invite Yellowbeard and others to suggest removal of other sites. Note that I specifically mentioned that there may be excess links under Opposition positions. However, that is a more complex question. It was simple to remove the local advocacy organizations affiliated with FairVote, and some other sites with quite a tenuous connection with this article, such as Green Party (United States). Deciding which sites which analyze IRV and compare it with other methods are redundant will take more research.

Yellowbeard has wholesale restored, and without discrimination. My sense is that all the links I removed will ultimately stand as removed, with consensus here; I specifically suggested, though, that some might return if a specific reason were shown. As an example of a site that I left in place, migreens.org hosts a history of preference voting in Ann Arbor, which is historically significant. In responding here, Yellowbeard did not state support for any specific link, and merely asserted that my removal was "selective." Of course it was selective! I removed links that had no purpose for this article, specifically, and most of them would be linked through the FairVote site. As to the question about other links, such as those to James Green-Armytage's site, I gave an answer, above. It is more difficult to determine redundancy in the opposition sites or sites with general information, but we certainly can review each one. Meanwhile, I've still seen no argument here for the specific inclusion of the links I removed. Hence I may, after a decent pause, to revert Yellowbeard's edit, but I'd rather see comment from other editors, preferably one of our IRV supporters, we have the benefit here of comment and sometimes editing by Rob Richie and Terrill Bouricius and others. This article will never make Good Article or Featured Article status with that list of links as it is. I also think we should move the Controversies section back to its own article. It really complicates this article, and, maybe this time, the IRV supporters will realize better why we had a consensus on the Controversies article, and not be so weak in supporting keeping that article, and in improving it and defending it if it comes up again for AfD. --Abd (talk) 22:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It would seem like the consensus was to have the links there, as you're the one removing them -- and doing so without first asking about it here in "talk" and only removing advocacy sides rather than spending any time looking at opposition ones I don't know what's typical with wikipedia articles, but I can say that almost all the links you removed go to groups that have no connection to FairVote, and those that do have link (like NCVotes123) include a lot of groups that have no connection to FairVote.


 * The reality is that there are far more advocacy groups supporting IRV than opposing it, so that might show up in links. Basically, opponents of IRV are: Joyce McCloy, her NC ally Chris Telesca and Kathy Dopp, who all seem to think (mistakenly) that IRV will lead to touchscreen voting; you and other advocates of alternative voting systems who seem to ground your opposition to IRV in your frustration that its advocates have been so much more successful than you in advancing proposals politically; some voting method theorists (in contrast to the academics who study comparative politics who are overwhelmingly sympathetic or neutral on IRV); and some local opponents in the context of the debate in their community/state (like the governor of Vermont). Not that many people, so opposition is represented by "opposition positions" (as opposed to organizations), most sourced to Joyce McCloy and range voting advocates.


 * You don't seem to mind adding lots of content that you create like analysis of election results, so a simple list of advocacy groups and opposition papers doesn't seem so awful. But I know you spend a lot more time in the Wikipedia than I do. Will be interesting to see who else weighs in here.

RRichie (talk) 23:15, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Rob Richie wrongly decided to speak for me without my permission and without providing citation here: "The reality is that there are far more advocacy groups supporting IRV than opposing it, so that might show up in links. Basically, opponents of IRV are: Joyce McCloy, her NC ally Chris Telesca and Kathy Dopp, who all seem to think (mistakenly) that IRV will lead to touchscreen voting;"  Rob Richie repeatedly posts this misinformation portending to speak for me or others. RR's claim is not fact based nor can he provide words or documentation to support it. Let me state my objections to IRV:  My problem with IRV is that it is not transparent whether on optical scan or touchscreen machine, it does not produce intuitive results, it does not produce a majority winner, it does not help third parties, it does not save money when you look at annual expenditures and start up costs as well, it is not understood well by most of the voters (according to survey in Cary NC in 2008, it creates a dependency on complex software to handle the memory heavy ballot images and complex algorithm. I hope that Rob Richie ceases his misrepresentation of my thoughts or words. Use citations ROB. There I've set the record straight. --Joyce McCloy (talk) 16:58, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * When Yellowbeard went just a little too far in trying to harass me, he was indefinitely blocked; and the blocking admin pointed to his mass restoration of the links that I had removed. (And he appealed to your "support" as evidence that his position wasn't unreasonable. It didn't fly.) Note that the removal was done in accordance with repeated expressions that it had become a WP:LINKFARM. I did not insist on particular removal, but it was pretty obvious that truly redundant links (such as all the links to local FairVote affiliates, when all that info is available on the FairVote site) should be the ones chosen. As to information about local campaigns, I noted that this information -- and these links -- belongs in the Implementations article.


 * I think that the sample ballot paper should have a second ballot paper showing the Australian case, where all candidates are numbered. This may make some of the ensuing discussion more relevant. 142.28.43.3 (talk) 19:42, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a fair point. Also, this user or another pointed out that, relating to the Robert's Rules discussion, elections by mail could always determine a majority winner if rankings were required, as done in Australia. Abd edited that out, but I think the point is valid -- remembering the context for this is Robert's Rules suggesting IRV when the organization doesn't want to hold more than one balloting for logistical reasons. --RRichie (talk) 15:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This was my reversion of that edit. Notice that I comment that the "fix" is true, however, that edit was in the lead, totally inappropriate. Robert's Rules would generally consider that "fix" as contrary to basic parliamentary procedures. I know of no organization that makes that requirement, but Richie might. The Australians do it in most elections. It's basically a trick. You can get a majority if you toss out otherwise valid ballots. I've pointed out that you can get unanimity, simply carry out the elimination one more step. Robert's Rules doesn't like (i.e., parliamentarians don't like) that an organization makes any decision with less than a majority vote of those participating. Sure, you can create a bylaw that allows election by plurality, which is what this really is. It's highly deceptive to call it a "majority." Robert's Rules, in suggesting IRV as an option, isn't deciding the question of what do do if there isn't a true majority after vote transfers, because their recommendation on that is already clear: repeated the election; it's fairly clear that, as they say, if there is a majority found it's better than simple election by plurality. But their discussion clearly shows that they consider that if ballots aren't fully ranked, the election will fail. They don't say will fail unless it's decided (in the bylaws) to elect with less than a majority of ballots cast. Something in the article about how the Australians do it would be in order. (I.e., they have preferential voting which requires what they call an absolute majority, and which requires full ranking or the ballots are spoiled -- this would never fly in the U.S. -- or they have optional preferential voting which is like what's proposed in the U.S., and which doesn't require that majority, only a tautological "majority" created by not considering exhausted ballots. And which also behaves differently from regular PV, tending to almost always elect the first round leader. Same as we've seen in the U.S. with IRV. --Abd (talk) 18:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to request that a link to my open-source software be readded (www.openstv.org). I understand that there is a policy against pages serving as link farms, but IMHO, OpenSTV is a great resource for people looking to implement instant runoff voting. jeff (talk) 01:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I saw this and noticed that User:JzG had removed the entire detailed External Link section, way back in September, leaving behind only FairVote and a few governmental election web sites, thus totally imbalancing the external links to pro-IRV sites. I have restored what was there. It included a link to OpenSTV; that link is reasonably justified by . We should review of the external links and determine which ones should remain. This was begun previously, I should look at that. The many advocacy sites formed for local campaigns should all go; generally, these are transient, or are linked from FairVote. FairVote itself should remain, of course, though a See Also to the article may be more appropriate. --Abd (talk) 01:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking back, I had removed a series of links to advocacy organizations, and had not completed the process of pruning when they were all added back by an editor who was banned, partly due to this. I've now removed those, and also some other links. Please feel free to restore a link that you think important, but my opinion is that we still have too many links. If you restore a link, or add a new one, please justify it, here in Talk, the same if you remove it. (I'm not justifying most of the removals today, beyond what I've stated above, but I assume that we will now discuss additions or removals one at a time. --Abd (talk) 02:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Winner-take-all elections vs minority representation
I'm not convinced that the six or seven paragraphs under "Winner-take-all elections vs minority representation" have much to do with the header meaning, because I'm not sure what the header means. Can the text in question be merged into different sections and/or be given a more descriptive header, please? 69.228.197.195 (talk) 20:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

American Chemical Society Elections
That was me that just reverted the edit, Abd. I just happened to notice this expansion of IRV earlier this week. You can go to the site if you want to check it out, but it's very clear. I believe the election was last fall RRichie (talk) 02:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for confirming that it was you. It's not clear from the link, Rob. That talks about a petition which, if accepted, would make that change. Show a source for the change, that would cover part of it. My own position is that if they aren't actually holding IRV elections, no matter what the bylaws say, it's not sufficiently notable for the article, but as a compromise, in the past, we allowed the mention provided that it was also mention that elections were not actually being held. The actual bylaws don't show the amendment. The 2008 election only had two candidates. 2009 currently has four nominees, but I don't know the details. So, at best, first election would be in 2009, and I'd greatly prefer we not show this as something they are doing if they haven't done it yet. So I'm reverting. Please don't push it, but discuss here, you know the rules. --Abd (talk) 04:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Abd -- ACS did made the change. That's why the cited page discusses its new instant runoff system being the one way it elects its president. I'll let you or someone else revert, though, as it's just not worth it to me to fight over.
 * RRichie (talk) 11:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The ACS uses IRV. (Bylaw V, Section 2d, Paragraph 3 and Section 4f, Paragraph 3) A Horse called Man 09:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Looks like it's now always for president and for other offices when there are three candidates -- when more, they use a runoff. I'll modify the article to reflect this point. RRichie (talk) 13:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Richie, I'm not fighting over it. The page you cited did not establish use, and, further, a society which has "implemented" IRV may seem important to you, but if they have never actually held an election, it's not notable. AHcM simply pointed to evidence that they "use" IRV; we already had that in the article, i.e., the foundation for it, which is the bylaw. But no evidence of actual usage. Yes, the bylaws now state that preferential voting is used for President whenever there are more than two candidates on the ballot. However, there aren't more than two candidates on the ballot in the elections I've looked at. It's not being used. My position has been that these mentions are actually not notable, because they are merely possibilities. They don't "use" IRV. The ACS might possibly be using it for some minor offices. Is that notable? I'd say not.
 * Richie, don't edit the article, unless you know it's not controversial. You are violating conflict of interest rules. You are more than welcome, you are invited, to make comments here. You turned out to be correct that there had been a bylaw change, but the document you cited (and, I think, still cite) doesn't show that. (And that's partly why I missed it. I also looked at the bylaws and apparently saw the section where the exactly three rule was still there.) We can fix it. You can even fix it, but you've removed an important qualification: no actual elections. You want the implementation in there, that qualifier needs to be there also. It's easily handled with a mention of any ACS election for President that used the preferential ballot, or any minor election likewise, specified as to what the election was. --Abd (talk) 17:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Just correcting/updating facts, Abd. What was there before was wrong. RRichie (talk) 19:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

On March 21, I updated the section on NGO organizations reflecting FairVote's research on the bylaws of a number of organizations and posted it online (new link in article). There are a large number of such elections, many of which (more than listed) qualify as notable. See an example of a hotly contested IRV election reported on here, for example, with more than 9,000 votes cast in elections for the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association: http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/44/6/1

Note that the list unfortunately remains US-centric. There are many more uses in other nations like Australia and the UK, but someone else will need to gather that, at least for now. RRichie (talk) 17:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Australian Senate Voting Reform 2016
Australian senate voting was switched from full preferential to optional preferential in 2016.

See http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/Voting_Senate.htm

This sentence could be improved: Full preferential voting is used for elections to the Australian federal parliament and for State parliaments. to: Full preferential voting is used for elections to the lower house of the Australian federal parliament and some Australian state parliaments. 203.9.33.7 (talk) 05:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed that this needs to change, however "optional preferential" generally means that an elector can vote for any number of candidates, as few as one, or even zero by not voting, whereas the Australian system requires a minimum of 12 candidates or 6 parties to be ranked. (And although voting is compulsory, it's legal to vote for zero candidates by submitting a deliberately spoilt ballot.)
 * So it seems like we need yet another term to describe this "partial preferential" system. Martin Kealey (talk) 05:31, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Tennessee Example Fixed
I have fixed the first, theoretical IRV example to accurately reflect the practical application of Single Vote Transfer. Note: I am an elections official in a jurisdiction that uses SVT, aka IRV, RCV, and any number of other three-letter initials. So, I have a lot of experience explaining how the system works to voters.

76.126.3.38 (talk) 16:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

It does not seem to be fixed. The 1500 first-choice Chattanooga votes are being added to the other candidates first-choice tallys in accordance to some unexplained proportioning. First of all, shouldn't any such example start with the complete data - that is, a 4 by 4 tabulation of the 1st through 4th choice tallys for each candidate? - so that we can work through the process ourselves a an exercise? Thanks gang. I came hear to learn about IRV and now I'm more confused than ever!

Title

 * Re the discussion, infra, the formal name for IRV, RCV, and the plethora of other names by which it is known is "Single Vote Transfer". FYI, the fictional example given under Tennessee is quite wrong.  (That is, it is very bad example, because it is nonsensical and does not reflect how the process actually works.)  Chattanooga's votes are NOT transferred to Knoxville; they stay right where they are.  This is what happens:  The ballots that listed Chattanooga as first choice are identified and re-processed for their second choice votes, which are then transferred among the other three cities, as they were cast by their voters.

76.126.3.38 (talk) 14:47, 7 October 2012 (UTC)


 * In this example, that's the same. The contrived example case has 100% of Chattanooga voters with identical ballots, there's no transferring to multiple other cities. Backfromquadrangle (talk) 01:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Given that the USA has trouble even running their polity properly, democratically and without corruption why has this article got an American English title? Albatross2147 (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Even weirder, it doesn't seem to be called IRV consistently in the US. Shouldn't it have the widest use title (I'm not sure what that would be, but I don't think that it would be IRV) or the oldest?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.27.50 (talk) 12:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

indeed i imagine alternative vote would be better. of course clarity of the difference between AV and STV might made clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.141.237 (talk) 18:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If the title of the article had been AV Alternative vote it would have been useful in the context of the recent UK referendom on AV. Prime Minister David Cameron was able to state that only three countries use AV. Whereas, it would seem that AV (IRV) is being used by many more countries. I am quite sure that the majority of UK citizens are under the impression that FPTP (First Past the Post) is the most used voting system in the World. Whereas, in another Wikipedia article Table_of_voting_systems_by_country it is fairly clear that FPTP is used to elect a government by little more than half of the world's countries, but the rest use a variety of different voting methods. GGeoff (talk) 20:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced material
I think this should stay off the page unless someone can find a source to back it up: "Votes are not transferred from 1st choice to 2nd to 3rd as lay people would expect.  Voters may think that if their first choice is eliminated, then their vote will necessarily go to their second choice. However, if their second choice and their third choice were eliminated before their first choice is eliminated, then their vote goes to the next ranked non-eliminated candidate -- their 4th choice, in this example. Had their vote been counted for their second choice earlier (instead of for their first choice candidate who was still in the running), their second choice might have survived elimination. Thus voters must still make compromise voting decisions, though not to the same extent as with plurality voting." H5mnd (talk) 19:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

it is descriptive of one of the standard forms of running such an election, though badly worded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.141.237 (talk) 18:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC) signed by --Abd (talk) 18:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

supplementary voting
The introduction is not clear about the difference between AV and the Supplmentary Vote (which is important as the English mayoral elections are held using SV, not AV, and are mentioned and cited in the introduction). Should this page not also be merged with contingent vote? Cripipper (talk) 13:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Removal of tag from History section
This article, I think, is long enough. If I'm wrong, then just revert my edit. --NBahn (talk) 07:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Attack on introduction and strategy/tactical defense
Someone has been removing the Robert's Rules quote from the introduction, and inflating the importance of the monotonicity criterion, without even mentioning that voting systems violating the monotonicity criterion (irv, contingent, rank-three, etc.) are always far more resistant to strategy and tactics than the alternatives. Therefore, I propose reverting to this version unless there are good reasons to simply restore the introduction, remove the contrived unsourced examples, and point out that the violation of the monotonicity criterion is an advantage, not a liability. 99.25.113.203 (talk) 15:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There are good reasons to do the latter instead of simply reverting. There's no way that violating the monotonicity criterion should be considered a disadvantage of IRV, contingent, or anything in between -- that is exactly where they derive their strength against fraud. 98.210.193.221 (talk) 17:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 *  There's no way that violating the monotonicity criterion should be considered a disadvantage of IRV, contingent, or anything in between -- that is exactly where they derive their strength against fraud.


 * Your personal views aside, the vast majority of professionals in this subject view the monotonicity criterion as desirable. On wikipedia's voting systems page, it is listed under "criteria that are accepted and considered to be desirable by many voting theorists." The argument that monotonicity "is exactly where they derive their strength against fraud" is plain wrong. Any system that violates monotonicity exposes itself to tactical voting, by definition. If raising the ranking of a candidate you like can cause him to lose, then tactically (and dishonestly) ranking him lower can cause him to win. 66.131.197.203 (talk) 16:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Edit: I have included a section on the disadvantages of non-monotonicity without removing your section on claimed advantages. Both arguments are now there, and people can judge for themselves which is more logical. Sorry for all the edits, I kept rewording things in the section I added. 66.131.197.203 (talk) 17:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I thought the change was a bit confusing too ,but consulted with someone who said that there is a legitimate argument that any system that upholds monotonicity presents more transparent ways to engage in strategic voting. Your point here actually is misleading in that it assumes that voters would know that they would benefit from dishonestly ranking a candidate lower. That is basically unknowable in any real election, so it really doesn't expose IRV to tactical voting. Tactical voting is only likely if people can figure out how it will help their side. So I'd suggest taking a look at the way you edited an article and making that point clearer.  RRichie (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Your point here actually is misleading in that it assumes that voters would know that they would benefit from dishonestly ranking a candidate lower. That is basically unknowable in any real election, so it really doesn't expose IRV to tactical voting.


 * I'm not sure who told you that this kind of information is unknowable in any real election, but I can easily prove that to be wrong with a counterexample. And not only that, but it is a relatively generalized counterexample. Assume (sorry, I'm going to break the tabs here for clarity):

'''Edit: I made a serious mistake here and wrote down an example that, while exhibiting deliberate strategic voting, did not violate monotonicity. That has been corrected. See the original mistake in my edit history.'''

(1) There are three candidates (or, almost equivalently, there are 3 strong candidates and N-3 weak also-rans whose vote totals are a negligible fraction of the electorate).

(2) The electorate agrees on the location of these three candidates on the liberal-conservative political spectrum (that is, there's one liberal candidate L, one conservative candidate C, and one moderate candidate M, and everyone agrees on these titles).

(3) No one has a majority of the vote, which is required for this example to be of any interest at all, and M is not in the lead. Without loss of generality, say L is in the lead (if you prefer the conservatives to be in the lead, just swap L and C in this step and below).

I hope you agree these are realistic and very general conditions. Now let's get a bit more specific:

(4) C is in second place and M is in third place. When M is eliminated, L wins the runoff (because, for instance, M is a centre-left candidate).

(5) If C had been eliminated first, M would have won the runoff because C voters overwhelmingly prefer M to L.

Conditions (4) and (5) make this a non-monotonic election.

(6) A poll is released before election day showing everyone's first choice.

A numeric example for the poll would be: L=43, C=30, M=27 in a 100 voter election (+/- 1 pt margin of error)

In this case, it should be obvious to C voters that they will lose in the second round, because they understand that M's voters are more left leaning. The only assumption I'm making here about their intelligence is that they know M is a centre-left candidate. It should be equally obvious that if 6 C voters, 4 plus twice the margin of error, lie and switch preferences from CML to LCM on election day, then M will be eliminated, guaranteeing M a victory. This is non-monotonic strategic voting. By ranking L higher, they guarantee L's loss. With a small electorate like this, it is trivial to organize C voters to vote this way. Even on a larger scale, this kind of voter coordination is not terribly difficult thanks to party email lists (although it will certainly be harder to keep it a secret).


 * So I hope the above shows the following: When the race is effectively among three candidates with given ideologies and IRV displays non-monotonicity, strategic voters do not even need to know the second preferences of others in order to recognize how to manipulate the election (they can infer likely second preferences from the voters first choices, and candidates' ideology). All they need is a standard poll, the kind that is published in almost every democratic country before elections. For genuine horse race elections with N candidates, I agree it will be hard for your average citizen to deduce a voter strategy. But, there are plenty of people on a campaign whose jobs are to work out a strategy to get their candidate to win. It's very likely that if such a strategy exists, they will find and exploit it. 66.131.197.203 (talk) 02:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * With all due respect -- and appreciation for taking the time to work this through -- this kind of tactical voting remains quite unlikely. One reason to test that out is that it hasn't been an issue in thousands of IRV elections for national  office. All of the above would be much more do-able with traditional runoff elections, and you do see it sometimes --but not often. So the way you have it overstates the opportunity to do it.    RRichie (talk) 04:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It is my understanding that the likelihood of non-monotonicity is still an open question (or a question with a disputed answer, at least), so I won't make any claims in the article. I do agree, however, that the way it is worded now, the section may accidentally give the impression that all IRV outcomes are non-monotonic (rather than just some, which is what the violation of the criterion says). So I have added the following


 * Note that a voting system which fails the monotonicity criterion does not have to give non-monotonic results in every election. What fraction of possible (or likely) outcomes are non-monotonic under IRV is an unresolved question.


 * I hope this is more to your satisfaction. I have actually tried* to calculate the probability of the above, 3 candidate, example, with the assumption of voters voting according to their place along the ideological spectrum (that is, if they are honest conservative voters, they will vote C>M>L and if they are liberal, they will vote L>M>C). Taking advantage of the fact that we get the same non-monotonicity if we switch L and C in every step, I have found that 1.13% (about 1/89) of all possible 3-candidate-on-an-ideological-spectrum elections exhibit vulnerability to this specific kind of tactical voting. Since most real life candidates can be associated with a place on the ideological spectrum by voters, you can argue that almost every time a 3 candidate election is held, there is at least a 1.13% chance of both a non-monotonic outcome and associated obvious tactical voting. (updated: apparently I can't do integrals properly) 66.131.197.203 (talk) 15:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * '*For any admins reading this, I am well aware of the OR prohibition. This will remain confined to the talk page. 66.131.197.203 (talk) 15:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * See adjustments in section and see how they work -- I think better to do something like this than a blanket statement without explanation. Also, I didn't realize I wasn't signed in when making the change. RRichie (talk) 17:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I do take issue with part of what you have written. A voting system that fails monotonicity is susceptible to tactical and strategic voting if campaigns... The susceptibility of IRV (or any other system) to tactical voting is independent of the practical considerations. If a voting system is susceptible to a specific type tactical voting, that means that tactical voting can theoretically occur, not that it is practical or feasible to accomplish. Although I hope my example, now revised (sorry, wanted to make sure I got it right), explains how it is feasible at the very least in smaller elections. So what I propose is the following. We keep the parts I you deleted in your edit, which show how non-monotonicity allows for a specific type of tactical voting in theory, but also keep your section which discusses the practical issues making it more difficult to pull off in larger elections. I have modified slightly some of your text. For instance, determining with precision the amount of votes needed to switch is not necessary. In the example I gave, C voters could give up between 4 and 6 people to L and effect the same outcome. In other elections (where C and M are closer), that range would be larger.


 * It would look something like this:


 * By definition, a voting system that fails monotonicity is susceptible to a specific type of tactical and strategic voting. If a voter can harm a candidate X by raising X's ranking, then the voter has an incentive to dishonestly rank X higher if he wants X to lose. Similarly, if a voter can help a candidate X by lowering X's ranking, then the voter has an incentive to dishonestly rank X lower if he wants X to win. In large elections, campaigns must determine the relative positioning of different candidates, which strong challengers could be defeated by a shift in votes and how much of their votes are unnecessary to win and then can persuade the proper number of voters to change their ordering of candidates. Note that a voting system that fails the monotonicity criterion does not have to give non-monotonic results in every election. What fraction of possible (or likely) outcomes are non-monotonic under IRV is an unresolved question.


 * Actually, I think it would be more economical to say In large elections, campaigns must determine whether non-monotonicity is possible, how it will affect their candidate, and persuade the proper number of voters to change their ordering of candidates if they see an advantage.


 * Let me know what you think. I am going to fix the 'susceptibility' mistake right away, though.66.131.197.203 (talk) 23:19, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Your proposed language seems reasonable to me.
 * RRichie (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

"If a voter can harm a candidate X by raising X's ranking, then the voter has an incentive to dishonestly rank X higher if he wants X to lose." -- that is nonsense. Systems which violate the monotonicity criterion do so in only a tiny, unpredictable fraction of possible ranking swaps, and thus the statement is just plain false. We should be basing our arguments here on the published literature, not whatever example you can make up, because there's no way to tell how plausible or likely such a contrived example is. 99.27.133.211 (talk) 23:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? That statement is as factually true as 'the sky is blue'. If you can harm a candidate you don't like by ranking him higher, then you have an incentive to rank him higher. It is not even an example, let alone a contrived one. It's a factually true statement. 66.131.184.130 (talk) 02:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You can't know if the sky is blue if you're blind. Or, in other words,the fact that scenarios can be developed after an election to show something doesn't mean it's going to result in tactical voting of this nature. As some evidence of this, there are literally tends of thousands of multi-candidate IRV races for offices to try to find some record of gaming the vote - -Australia House races alone, but also hundreds of associations use it in contested races. I've never seen evidence of pre-election efforts to vote tactically due to nonmonotonicity. There definitely are examples from two-round runoffs, but that's because you can switch your vote back to your real first choice in the runoff RRichie (talk) 10:27, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

nonmonotonicity in two places
The editor today pointed out that IRV's failure to meet the nonmonotonicity criterion is seen as both an advantage and a disadvantage. Seems confusing to have it in both places. Might it might make more sense to have one discussion of it, presumably under disadvantages, with the "advantage" point woven in there? RRichie (talk) 18:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Nonmonotonicity occurs under IRV due to an interaction between later-no-harm/help and mutual majority, which causes a participation flaw. In essence, if a mutual majority runs off before a minority candidate can be eliminated, the minority voters don't matter; but if fewer minority voters come out to vote, their candidate is eliminated, and they may receive a better result.  This is especially true of large minorities, e.g. 60% voting A and B as their first two versus 40% voting C as their first and B as their second.  Because 40% is bigger than 30%, it is impossible for C to be eliminated before the mutual majority elects a candidate.  In this situation, so long as candidate A doesn't end up with a simple majority, C voters either declining to vote at all *or* ranking A as their first candidate cause C to be eliminated early by reducing first-order C votes to below those of B, and so their votes transfer to B, thus by voting for A>C>B instead of C>B>A they cause B to win.
 * This creates a *really* bad situation: the closer an election is expected to be, the more likely the minority is to be locked out.  A close election implies the minority will run off to a mutual candidate in significant number, e.g. an election within ten points will come down to 55% vs 45% or closer.  If the minority are certain they can't win, they can achieve a better result by ranking whoever they think is least-bad who *can* win; if they think they might have a chance but it will be close, then both sides risk being locked out by voting honestly, but by voting dishonestly their candidate can lose when they would have otherwise won.  Smith/IRV adds the Condorcet criterion, which fixes this, but it doesn't make the system monotonic; instead, it removes later-no-harm/help, improving the system's representativeness and making each vote closer to equal, eliminating the participation flaw when a Condorcet winner exists, and containing it to the Smith set otherwise.  John Moser (talk) 16:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This creates a *really* bad situation: the closer an election is expected to be, the more likely the minority is to be locked out.  A close election implies the minority will run off to a mutual candidate in significant number, e.g. an election within ten points will come down to 55% vs 45% or closer.  If the minority are certain they can't win, they can achieve a better result by ranking whoever they think is least-bad who *can* win; if they think they might have a chance but it will be close, then both sides risk being locked out by voting honestly, but by voting dishonestly their candidate can lose when they would have otherwise won.  Smith/IRV adds the Condorcet criterion, which fixes this, but it doesn't make the system monotonic; instead, it removes later-no-harm/help, improving the system's representativeness and making each vote closer to equal, eliminating the participation flaw when a Condorcet winner exists, and containing it to the Smith set otherwise.  John Moser (talk) 16:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

AV
Why is the American name for this voting system the only one mentioned in the first para? 86.181.64.208 (talk) 08:07, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "Instant-runoff voting" is more common than "alternative voting" and the other names are mentioned in the second paragraph. -- Explodicle (T/C) 14:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

More common simply because there are more Americans on the internet. By that argument, all American terms should have precedence over others. This is not a subject of much interest to Americans. It's a core facet of electoral systems in other countries, where the most common name is along the lines of Alternative Vote, not instant runoff. 90.211.194.170 (talk) 12:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Ever since the 2000 election it has been a topic of great interest to Americans. That's part of the reason there are many American web pages. -- Explodicle (T/C) 13:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the reasons given above for giving this page the American term as its main name. For example, the term "instant run off" isn't the one used to describe the system in Australia or in the UK. Yet it's widely used in Australia and a bill is about to be introduced in the UK to have a referendum on introducing it for Parliamentary elections. However, in the US the system is only used for a relatively small number of elections. Why should the different term used in them take priority? (I appreciate the point that there are more pages on the internet which use the term IRV, but is that such a good basis for making a decision?) Markpackuk (talk) 12:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I recommend that we should wait for the result of the United Kingdom alternative vote referendum. When alternative vote gets adopted here, then this term will outperform the use of other terms by far. Markus Schulze 13:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Instant runoff voting" is a term developed for political advocacy, in the mid-1990s, promoted by FairVote. The method has been in proposal or use since the 19th century, but was almost never called that (one description of the STV method of single-winner preferential voting shows up in an article on the Ann Arbor election in the 1970s, I have seen no others before the FairVote invention). The name implies and has been used to promote the idea that IRV simulates regular runoff voting, and most IRV implementations in the U.S. were as a supposed single-ballot method of finding a "majority," replacing actual runoff elections. IRV, however, doesn't simulate runoff voting, or repeated ballot (as is strongly recommended by Robert's Rules of Order), but rather exhaustive ballot, and IRV only rarely, at least in nonpartisan elections, finds a true majority of votes cast. The name is thus a form of political propaganda. Balanced against this is that web usage of IRV is common. But academic papers almost never call it that. Most of those using the system, I believe, are in Australia, where the system is called the "preferential vote." In the U.S., that term has also been used for Bucklin voting, which uses a preferential ballot. I'd say that the bulk of actual usage should be the determining factor. See Preferential voting. --Abd (talk) 17:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Here are the page view statistics for instant-runoff voting. Here are the page view statistics for Alternative Vote. The statistics show that 58% of those, who read the instant-runoff voting article, were actually looking for "Alternative Vote". Markus Schulze 17:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I think this issue of the name of the article should be given much more attention and possibly be the subject of a poll. At the moment, I think the naming of the article (and much of the aritlce) represents a view of the subject too heavily weighted in favour of US practices. An example of the effects of this (unintended) bias: in Australia, for example, which - according to this very article, this voting system was pioneered in practice in actual legislative elections and remains a central element of the electoral process - this voting system is all but universally called "preferential voting" and I would imagine an Australian Wikipedia user would be surprised to learn that Wikipedia calls this system "Instant-runoff voting" (especially so given the concept of "runoff elections" is unheard of in Australian parliamentary elections). This example should surely demonstrate that, at the very least, the issue of the name of this article is an important issue, deserving of more thorough discussion in these discussion pages. If I had to choose, I would vote [1] "Preferential voting"; [2] "Alternative voting" and [3] "Instant-runoff voting". Look at that - I just used a preferential vote!


 * Outside Australia, the term "preferential voting" is used for all election methods where the voters rank the candidates in order of preference. See: preferential voting and preferential voting (disambiguation). Markus Schulze 00:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Just on a side note I believe the Australian state of New South Wales experimented with run-off elections for the state parliament before the First World War but abandoned them because of the logistics involved in scheduling extra polling days, particularly in rural areas.


 * WRT the article title, isn't the term "preferential voting" as used in Australia as well strictly referring to all forms of numbered voting, both the single & multi member elections? Timrollpickering (talk) 23:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * In Australia, the term "preferential voting" refers to instant-runoff voting and the term "quota-preferential voting" refers to proportional representation by the single transferable vote. Markus Schulze 23:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * As an (anonymous) Australian, I'm fine with the terminology of instant-runoff voting. It's not the terminology used in Australia, but globally it's more understood.203.9.33.7 (talk) 05:51, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The name of this article
I see that User:RRichie requested that this article be changed to Instant runoff voting. As you will notice from the blue link, there is a redirect sitting there. The article has bounced around. It was created under the requested name. It was changed to Instant-runoff voting and then, possibly accidentally to Instant Runoff Voting and then immediately back to the present name, Instant-runoff voting.

The name is changed by Moving the page. This will create a redirect, generally, from the old page to the new.

However, double redirects are to be avoided, so moving this page is not simple. This is the situation with links.

Instant-runoff voting is linked from 627 pages if I counted right, I might not have.

Instant runoff voting is linked from 88 pages. (Redirects to Instant-runoff voting)

Instant Runoff Voting is linked from 55 pages. (Redirects to Instant-runoff voting)

IRV is linked from 23 pages. (Redirects to Instant-runoff voting)

If we move this article to Instant runoff voting, the links to that name won't be a problem, and links to the current name (with the hyphen) won't be a problem. Links to Instant Runoff Voting and IRV will have to be fixed.

There is also Instant-runoff voting in the United States, links. Notice the redirects. If that name is fixed, there will be other links to fix.

There is also []. This was an article created by consensus here, and then AfD'd by the instigation of an editor later blocked as having used sock puppets, and, though consensus wasn't really clear, there is some frequent sentiment against "controversies" articles, and the assumption seems to have been that the article was created as a POV fork (which wasn't true, we agreed on it here, both supporters and critics of IRV, because it was better organization of the information).

This time, we should make sure. From article usage here, the name mostly has the hyphen. I agree it looks odd. I never use the hyphen in my own writing, though I mostly use the acronym IRV.

I think that there is a bot that goes around fixing double redirects, so it might not be a problem. --Abd (talk) 02:55, 29 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The title isn't supposed to use the Unicode HYPHEN character (U+2010). According to Wikipedia article naming convention, it is supposed to be the HYPHEN-MINUS character (U+002D), easily accessible on most computer keyboards just to the right of the zero (0) key. — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)T @ 19:49, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

The First Sentence here Looks Like a Typo
So I'm going to be bold and clip it (although I don't know where it's supposed to go).

and the United Kingdom —NBahn (talk) 12:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

The Condorcet criterion
Someone tried to removed this section by commenting it out. Unfortunately HTML comments don't nest, so the result was a mess. I've removed the comment, restoring the section. If you want it gone, delete it outright. Relaxing (talk) 15:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The historical record offers multiple examples in which IRV counting rules produced a different outcome than the "first past the post" (single seat plurality) system.
"The historical record offers multiple examples in which IRV counting rules produced a different outcome than the "first past the post" (single seat plurality) system."

I know of no situation in which a country, municipality etc. has run an election simultaneously using two systems in parallel, so haw can this assertion be true?


 * I agree the statement is asserting something it can't mean. I'd assume it is intended to mean the "plurality winner" from the first round of IRV process was different than the final winner in IRV. Tom Ruen (talk) 21:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Copy of text that was recently added inappropriately to introduction
For those who want to work with it in the appropriate place in the article -- I assume mostly in "pro's and con's, which already is long and somewhat repetitive -- here it is:

RRichie (talk) 22:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Several inaccuracies regarding IRV and the "spolier effect".
Please refer to this analysis: regarding the 2009 mayoral election in Burlington Vermont using IRV.

"IRV eliminates the spoiler effect in many cases." It mitigates such effect but does not necessarily eliminate it. Should be reworded.

"Under IRV, voters are not forced into choosing between the lesser of two evils" Worded as unqualified as this, this is objectively false. Referring to the above analysis, there were 1513 voters who found out after the election that marking their first choice for mayor caused their last choice to be elected. Had IRV survived to the next election, what would these voters have to consider in the polls, given their experience in the previous election. If the same dynamic existed, these Republicans would have to choose between the lesser of evils (the Democrat) and the greater of evils (the Progressive) from their POV.

"IRV never leaves a "spoiler" candidate for the second-place candidate to blame." That is objectively false. In the example cited above, the Republican candidate was a spoiler. He was a loser and if he had not run and voter voted the same way for the remaining candidates, the winner of the IRV election would be the Democrat, not the Progressive.

"Using ranked preference ballots, any number of candidates can run without "spoiling" being a factor." Not so. Particularly if IRV is the method of tabulating the ranked preference ballots. It's a bit better for Condorcet, but not even always true in that case. Nonetheless, to make that unqualified statement inside the IRV article is a laughable error. It just is not true and voting method scholars have known that for decades.

It's very irresponsible for such factual errors to be published in this article, especially without qualification. What is this? A Fairvote.org website? 64.222.90.194 (talk) 05:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

citation needed for united states: berkeley, san leandro
under "united states" (table of contents)the article states citation is needed to verify that AV voting has taken place in berkeley and san leandro, california. both cities are in alameda county, as is oakland, (which does not carry the citation needed notation.) alameda county instituted AV ( IRV ) in all its area at the same time. counties govern all voting procedures in california, not individual municipalities. ( I.e., Alameda County Registrar of Voters.) berkeley and san leandro did indeed begin using IRV, and there are more towns and cities in that county not listed in the article which did the same, as well as all unincorporated areas of that county. contact state of california, secretary of state, for complete list of IRV voting instituted in the state so far. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.75.65.155 (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

UK Conservative Party Leadership Elections
The introduction states that IRV is used to elect the leader of the UK Conservative Party. This is not true. Under the current rules a new ballot is held the day after the previous ballot, and thus there is no instant run off. Furthermore, the electorate consists solely of Conservative Members of Parliament until the run-off between the final two candidates, when the full party membership is allowed to vote. Also, even if a candidate does receive more than 50% of the vote at any of the preliminary stages they are still not elected. This is certainly not IRV. Jordi22 (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Good catch: it appears I was misinformed. As a matter of interest, which system does it fit into? Sounds like Two-round system, or similar. Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 01:37, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A primary election process is closer, since two round system will stop if a majority winner is found in the first round, while the primary round can reduce candidates but never picks a winner. Tom Ruen (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a good question as to which system they do use. As far as I'm aware the procedure is completely unique. I suppose you could classify the preliminary votes by Members of Parliament as a form of primary election, although a very closed one. The run-off between the final two candidates, where the whole membership can vote, is then conducted as a simple First Past the Post election. Jordi22 (talk) 18:16, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Tom Ruen and Jordi22. Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 17:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If there are only two candidates then the electoral system is irrelevant - all electoral systems[1] will produce the same as FPTP under those circumstances so at that stage you might as well keep it simple. It doesn't mean that the conservatives elect their leader using FPTP.
 * [1] Is someone going to be able to come up with some exotic system where it doesn't? ;-) Bagunceiro (talk) 08:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Closed party list with only one party, only one winner, but two candidates on the party list. The first-ranked in the list will win every time (assuming number of votes > 0) under the list system, but not necessarily every time under FPTP. Well, you did ask...:-) Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 17:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And I had every confidence that someone would have a smart alec answer. ;-) Bagunceiro (talk) 14:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't underestimate me: I have several smart-alec answers...:-). Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 15:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Range would not necessarily follow FPTP RodCrosby (talk) 15:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)