History and Use of Instant-runoff Voting

History And Use Of Instant-runoff Voting

Instant-runoff voting, more commonly known outside the USA as the alternative vote or preferential voting, was devised around 1870 by the US architect W. R. Ware. Today it is in use at a national level to elect the Australian House of Representatives, the Fijian House of Representatives, the President of Ireland and President of India. In Australia it is also used for elections to the legislative assemblies (lower houses) of all states and territories except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, and for the Tasmanian Legislative Council (upper house).

IRV is also used a number of municipal elections in Australia, the United States, and New Zealand. Because of its relationship to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, IRV is used for by-elections in a some jurisdictions that use STV for ordinary parliamentary elections, such as the Republic of Ireland and Scotland.

IRV is known by different names in the various countries in which it is used. It is also known as the 'Alternative Vote', 'Ranked Choice Voting', 'Preferential Voting', and the 'Hare system'. The last three of these names may be misleading, because IRV is only one of a number of forms of preferential voting systems, and because the precise system known as 'instant-runoff voting' was invented by Ware rather than Thomas Hare.