IRV and You

As a voter, IRV is incredibly easy to use. On your ballot, simply rank the candidates in the order you want them elected. If only one candidate pleases you that's fine; you don't have to rank candidates if you don't want to and your vote will be counted equally. That's it, that's all a voter needs to know to use IRV.

The greatest advantage IRV offers you, the voter, is flexibility. Let's use the 2000 Presidential election as an example. Back then people warned Green Party members that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. And they were right: Bush beat Gore in Florida, and thus won the presidency, by 537 votes — but Nader received over 97,000 votes. We can assume two things about these voters: 1) they would have preferred Gore be elected to Bush, and 2) they knew Nader had no chance of winning. They voted their hearts instead of their minds and paid for it. If only 1 percent of Green voters had voted strategically for Gore, instead of Nader whom they preferred, Bush would not have been elected. Ironically, these voters learned their lesson: in the 2004 Florida election, Nader received only 33,000 votes.

Another benefit of IRV is that election campaigns become less mud-slinging and more Voter-centric. Candidates running for office now have an interest in reaching out even to decided voters, because they can secure a 2nd choice slot. To do this, candidates are less likely to go negative, a tactic which could offend these voters, and will instead differentiate themselves on substantive issues. Under IRV, candidates are encouraged to stick to the issues ad debate them, not slip into personal attacks.

Lastly, IRV encourages you, the average citizen, to become more educated about local politics. With IRV, your vote cannot be wasted so it is now in your interest to look into the more obscure candidates. Without IRV, examining the non-frontrunner candidates is a waste of time — and voting for them is a wasted ballot. If an obscure candidate can become viable through IRV you are more likely to find the candidate that best suits you and also learn more, simply by hearing the issues put forth by every candidate.

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