The Spring 2008 student election season brought another successful round of instant runoff voting (IRV) elections, including the University of Iowa's highest turnout student election ever. Recent elections at Georgetown and the implementation of IRV this year at the university of California at San Diego, Santa Fe Community College (FL) and North Carolina State University also showcase IRV's growing use on college campuses. Moreover, half of U.S. News and World Report's top 30 schools now use IRV and/or choice voting for their student elections.FairVote has helped a number of these institutions make the transition to IRV and continues to help other universities improve their elections through efforts such as the development of online IRV software.
[Successful student election using IRV at the University of Iowa]
[Coverage of Georgetown University student elections using IRV]
[IRV uninamously adopted for UCSD student elections]
[More about student elections using IRV]
A city of more than 60,000 people, Santa Fe (NM) voted 65% on March 4, 2008 to become the latest city to give a landslide win to instant runoff voting (IRV). Called ranked choice voting in Santa Fe, IRV has won 13 of the last 14 times it has appeared before voters in cities and counties across the nation.
The two frontrunners for their party's nominations, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, are both active backers of instant runoff voting (IRV). In 2002, Sen. McCain recorded a message for backers of IRV in Alaska, while that year Sen. Obama was the lead sponsor of legislation to implement IRV for certain Illinois elections.
With most third party candidates also supporting IRV, we may see a rare
issue of consensus this November, although neither McCain nor Obama have
yet secured their party's nomination.
