Majority rule and genuine voter choice are marks of a functioning democracy. To promote voter choice in high turnout elections, we encourage understanding, adoption and effective implementation of instant runoff voting, a ranked choice voting system used in a growing number of American elections.
Instant runoff voting, the "alternative vote", continues its remarkable progress. A charter commission in New York City has recommended in its preliminary report a November ballot measure on adoption of instant runoff voting, with backing from a range of New York leaders. A charter commission in Portland, the biggest city in Maine, has made its final recommendation for a November ballot measure to amend its charter to elect its mayor directly with IRV.
Internationally, the big news is in the United Kingdom, where the government has committed to moving legislation through parliament to hold a national referendum on May 5, 2011 to adopt IRV for elections to the House of Commons. The influential Financial Times has come out for the change, with the New York Times also indicating support. The leading candidates to head the opposition Labour Party also back IRV; they themselves are contesting an IRV election for Labour Party leader.
Learn more:
New York City: Wall Street Journal on charter commission interest; see the actual report here
Portland, Maine: News story on charter commission and commentary
United Kingdom referendum: Editorials in Financial Times, New York Times and on Labor leadership support.
UK IRV elections for Labour Party leader and House of Commons leadership
Rob Richie and Alec Slatky oped on IRV in Politico
FairVote Twitter with ongoing news
After a much-anticipated vote, ranked-choice voting is a go in San Leandro.
"Instant-runoff voting is working in communities across the country, including San Francisco and Burlington, Vt., and has tremendous potential to democratize our politics."
On November 24th 2007, Australia elected its House of Representatives with instant runoff voting (IRV), as it has for more than eight decades. After four straight election defeats, the Labor Party won a landslide majority of seats. Under IRV, Labor's initial 44% of first choices turned into a clear majority after considering the choices of supporters of third party candidates with too little support to win seats. The Green Party's 7.79% share of the national vote largely went to Labor in House races; that share earned several senate seats elected by proportional voting. Due in large part to compulsory voting, turnout was 94.77%; Australians rank near the top of national comparisons of voter satisfaction with their government. [read more]
