Since 2002, Instant Runoff Voting has been adopted in a number of U.S. cities, however most of these adoptions are pending implementation. , 32 elections have been held in four cities or towns: San Francisco, California, Burlington, Vermont, Takoma Park, Maryland, and for a pilot program in Cary, North Carolina.

This article lists the cities in the order of year adopted, the status of implementation, and the results of elections held.

2002

San Francisco, California

In March 2002, an initiative backed by a broad coalition of civic organizations won 55% of the vote in making instant runoff voting the means of electing candidates for the Board of Supervisors and most citywide offices in San Francisco. It was first used in that city in October 2004 for YouthVOTE, an election held throughout San Francisco’s public schools which elected the SF school board's student delegate, after that it was used in the November 2004 supervisoral races. Instant runoff voting played a decisive role in at least one city election in 2004, 2005 and 2006 (). Exit polls by San Francisco State University have shown strong support for the new system from all groupings of voters.

Note: The San Francisco Department of Elections prefers the term Ranked Choice Voting because "the word instant might create an expectation that final results will be available immediately after the polls close on election night. The Department release first choice totals immediately, but chooses to wait until most absentee ballots have arrived before running instant runoff ballot counts.)

The November 2008 ballot will also include ranked choice voting for local elections. In July 2008 the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury made recommendations for the San Francisco Department of Elections

Results

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) has been used since 2004 to elect its Board of Supervisors and major citywide offices. This implementation allows the voter to rank three candidates and uses sequential candidate elimination until one candidate earns a majority of votes cast for remaining candidates. , there have been 20 elections using the RCV ballot.

2004 San Francisco results

There were four elections that used the instant runoff process; Districts 1,5,7, and 11.

• District 1: There were 7 candidates, reduced to 2 candidates in 4 rounds. The winner won 54% of the final round count, which amounted to 48.67% of the total first-round votes, with 9.89% of the ballots exhausted by the final round.
• District 5: There were 22 candidates, reduced to 3 in 19 rounds, when the winner had a majority of active ballots. The winner finished with 50.6% of the final round vote against two runners up, which amounted to 37.63% of the first-round vote with 25.63% of the ballots exhausted.
• District 7: There were 13 candidates, reduced to 2 in 11 rounds. The winner finished with 57% of the votes cast for the two active candidates in the final round. Of first round votes, this amounted to 43.72% of the first-round vote, with 23.12% exhausted ballots.
• District 11: There were 8 candidates, reduced to 2 in 6 rounds. The winner finished with 58% of the final round vote, which amounted to 46.08% of the total first-round vote, with 21.01% of the ballots exhausted.

The District 5 results are included below as the largest election from 2004 and most round of counting. The elimination table shows the candidates reordered by their elimination. The elimination process was stable for the highest 5 candidates, holding their same plurality ranking each round despite the 19 rounds of elimination and transfer votes.

The IRV elimination process was halted when candidate Mirkarimi reached more than 50% of the active ballots, but only 37.6% of the total first-round ballots. This stopping point is pragmatic for picking a winner, but fails to show how many votes the winner had compared to only the strongest runner up candidate.

2004 San Francisco District 5 - Ranked-Choice Voting

Candidate	Pass 1	Pass 2	Pass 3	Pass 4	Pass 5	Pass 6	Pass 7	Pass 8	Pass 9	Pass 10	Pass 11	Pass 12	Pass 13	Pass 14	Pass 15	Pass 16	Pass 17	Pass 18	Pass 19
ROSS MIRKARIMI	9947	9950	9952	9969	9996	10034	10094	10158	10261	10387	10472	10635	10766	10946	11262	11659	11921	12287	13211
ROBERT HAALAND	5124	5126	5130	5146	5180	5192	5226	5254	5318	5384	5461	5538	5628	5740	5956	6319	6409	6636	7272
LISA FELDSTEIN	3257	3265	3274	3289	3309	3323	3381	3430	3484	3566	3671	3765	3851	4070	4313	4636	4759	5064	5628
NICK WAUGH	3025	3025	3027	3035	3053	3070	3090	3118	3187	3243	3296	3391	3441	3540	3732	3900	4063	5041
ANDREW SULLIVAN	2477	2478	2479	2494	2501	2550	2570	2580	2639	2663	2716	2771	2831	2870	2982	3068	3601
JIM SIEGEL	1540	1542	1543	1551	1565	1608	1639	1657	1743	1763	1820	1866	2053	2111	2184	2242
BILL BARNES	1664	1670	1671	1680	1690	1709	1719	1731	1751	1804	1871	1945	1977	2018	2142
DAN KALB	1398	1400	1400	1412	1430	1449	1466	1493	1540	1582	1610	1698	1739	1867
SUSAN C. KING	977	980	984	1007	1034	1051	1072	1116	1147	1206	1237	1293	1371
MICHAEL E. O'CONNOR	868	870	873	882	906	930	944	973	1012	1036	1079	1127
BRETT WHEELER	832	833	835	845	871	881	896	929	951	995	1026
JOSEPH BLUE	802	805	807	814	819	842	851	860	876	908
PHOENIX STREETS	657	658	660	673	699	714	731	752	771
TYS SNIFFEN	686	687	688	692	707	719	730	746
JULIAN DAVIS	418	422	429	443	462	467	481
EMMETT GILMAN	393	394	398	405	407	423
FRANCIS SOMSEL	368	368	370	379	381
ROB ANDERSON	336	341	342	346
VIVIAN WILDER	130	134	135
PATRICK M. CIOCCA	91	91	91
PHILLIP HOUSE	62	62
H. BROWN	57
Eligible Ballots	35109	35101	35088	35062	35010	34962	34890	34797	34680	34537	34259	34029	33657	33162	32571	31824	30753	29028	26111
Exhausted Ballots (-4146 no marks)		8	21	47	99	147	219	312	429	572	850	1080	1452	1947	2538	3285	4356	6081	8998
Total Ballots	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109	35109
Plurality candidate %	28.33%	28.34%	28.35%	28.39%	28.47%	28.58%	28.75%	28.93%	29.23%	29.59%	29.83%	30.29%	30.66%	31.18%	32.08%	33.21%	33.95%	35.00%	37.63%

Notes:

• The source summary listed Eligible ballots each round as nonexhausted ballots. This is shown here.
• The source summary listed Exhausted ballots as ALL exhausted ballots, including ballots with no marks at all on the election. This table subtracts exhausted the 4146 ballots that supported no candidates to be consistent with other tables in this article.
• Similarly the source listed Total ballots to include eligible and exhausted ballots. Here the no-mark ballots were also removed from the total.
• The final column "Plurality candidate %" is based on votes for the top candidate divided by this adjusted total ballots.

2005 San Francisco results

There was only one election requiring the instant runoff process to be performed, with 4 candidates and finding a 55% majority winner in two rounds.

November 8, 2005: RCV Assessor-Recorder

Candidate	Pass 1		Pass 2
PHIL TING	94062	47.21%	110053	55.24%
GERARDO SANDOVAL	71850	36.06%	79261	39.78%
RONALD CHUN	33294	16.71%
ANTHONY FABER	18	0.01%
Eligible Ballots	199224	100%	189314	95.03%
Exhausted Ballots (-26146 no marks)	0	0.00%	9910	4.97%
Total Ballots	199224		199224

2006 San Francisco results

There were two elections that required the instant runoff process, districts 4 and 6:

• District 4: There were 6 candidates which were reduced to 2 in 4 rounds. The winner ended with 52.5% of the final round vote for active candidates, which amounted to 42.33% of the first-round vote, with 19.38% exhausted ballots.
• District 6: There were 8 candidates and was stopped on the second round with 4 candidates remaining. The winner had 49.99% of the total first-round votes, with 48.37% divided among the 3 runners up, and 1.64% exhausted ballots.

The detailed runoff results for district 4 are:

San Francisco 2006 MEMBER, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DIST. 4

Race and Candidate	Pass 1		Pass 2		Pass 3		Pass 4
ED JEW	5184	26.16%	5441	27.46%	6455	32.58%	8388	42.33%
RON DUDUM	5134	25.91%	5521	27.86%	6305	31.82%	7587	38.29%
JAYNRY MAK	4569	23.06%	5012	25.30%	5851	29.53%
DOUG CHAN	3236	16.33%	3414	17.23%
DAVID FERGUSON	1455	7.34%
HOUSTON ZHENG	234	1.18%
WRITE-IN	2	0.01%
Eligible Ballots (-2171 no marks)	19814	100.00%	19388	97.85%	18611	93.93%	15975	80.62%
Exhausted Ballots	0	0.00%	426	2.15%	1203	6.07%	3839	19.38%
Total Ballots	19814	100%	19814	100%	19814	100%	19814	100%

Basalt, Colorado

The city of Basalt, Colorado adopted instant runoff voting in 2002 for mayoral elections in which there are at least three candidates. The city is ready to run instant runoff elections, but the 2004 and 2008 elections did not have more than two candidates file for the mayor's office.

2004

Ferndale, Michigan

The city of Ferndale, Michigan passed (68%) instant runoff voting in 2004 pending implementation.

Berkeley, California

The city of Berkeley, California passed (72%) instant runoff voting in 2004 pending implementation.

2005

Burlington, Vermont

The city of Burlington, Vermont approved IRV with a 64% vote in 2005.

Burlington results 2006

In 2006 it held its first mayoral election using IRV. Progressive Bob Kiss won in two rounds with 54.4% of the final round vote over Hinda Miller, which amounted to 48.6% of the first-round vote, with 10.6% offering no preference between the two finalists.

Candidate	Round 1		Round 2
Bob Kiss (Progressive)	3809	(38.9%)	4761	(48.6%)
Hinda Miller (Democrat)	3106	(31.7%)	3986	(40.7%)
Kevin Curley (Republican)	2609	(26.7%)	--
Other	254	(2.6%)	--
Exhausted ballots (-10 with no marks)	--		1031	(10.5%)
Total	9778	(100%)	9778	(100%)

2006

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, passed (65%) instant runoff voting in November 2006. Implementation is scheduled for the 2009 municipal elections. A citizen group filed a lawsuit on December 20, 2007 challenging the constitutionality of the system and to block its implementation.

Pierce County, Washington

Pierce County, Washington passed (53%) instant runoff voting in November 2006 for implementation for most of its county offices in 2008. Voters upheld the 2008 implementation timing with a vote of 67% in 2007 and made minor adjustments to the charter language involving ballot access and numbers of rankings..

Takoma Park, Maryland

The city of Takoma Park, Maryland adopted instant runoff voting for city council and mayoral elections in 2006.

Takoma Park results 2007

In January 2007 the first IRV election was help to fill a city council vacancy in a 3-way race with a majority winner in the first round. Voters selected Reuben Snipper with 107 votes (52.7%), defeating Eric Hensal with 72 votes (35.5%) and Alexandra Quéré Barrionuevo with 23 votes (11.3%) and one write-in.)

Snipper said the possibility of using the IRV system changed the race's dynamics. "I had every reason to believe this was going to be a close race," he said. "It meant that when I knocked on a door, if a person indicated they were going to vote for another candidate, I didn't just leave right away. I tried to persuade them I would be a good second choice."

In November 2007 the mayor ran unopposed, and, out of six ward seats on the ballot, one was contested. Runoff provisions were not exercised.

Oakland, California

The city of Oakland, California voters passed (69%) a measure in November 2006 to adopt IRV for its city offices, pending implementation.

North Carolina

North Carolina in July 2006 adopted a pilot program for instant runoff voting in the form of batch-elimination IRVfor up to 10 cities in 2007 and up to 10 counties for 2008; to be monitored and reported to the 2007-2008 General Assembly.

Several municipalities considered participating in the IRV pilot in 2007. Cary, Hendersonville and Kinston voted to participate; Kinston dropped out because there were not enough candidates running to use IRV. Other cities declined to participate in the pilot. No NC counties volunteered to pilot IRV in 2008 elections held in conjunction with state and federal races In August 2008 the governor signed legislation extending the pilot program for local elections to be held in 2009-2011.

There was much debate whether IRV was successful when it was used This debate continued in the North Carolina legislature when it debated legislation to extend the pilot program. Some verified voting advocates contended that the IRV tabulation procedures used were not legal. Both advocates and opponents of the provision supported amendments to the pilot program to: ensure that the local governing body of any jurisdiction participating in the pilot must approve their partcipation; the jurisdiction must develop and implement voter education plans; and the UNC School of Government by January 2009 must approve procedures for conducting IRV elections. After these amendments were adopted, the house by a majority of 65-47 rejected an amendment designed to remove the pilot program from the legislation, and the legislation ultimately won approval by both house.

Results (Cary, North Carolina)

In October 2007 the city of Cary, North Carolina used batch-elimination IRV for municipal elections involving the Mayor and three council seats. The mayoral election had two candidates on the ballot and two of the council seats (with four and three candidates on the ballot) were won with a majority in the first round. The remaining council seat, with three candidates, went to a second round of counting under the instant runoff system; the plurality winner in the first round went on to win with 50.9% of the final round vote, amounting to 46.4% of first-round ballots cast, with 8.9% of the ballots offering no preference between the top two candidates.

COUNCIL MEMBER C-B 1
CARY MUNICIPAL DISTRICT B:

Candidate	Round 1		Round 2
Don Frantz	1151	(38.1%)	1401	(46.4%)
Vickie Maxwell	1075	(35.6%)	1353	44.8%)
Nels Roseland	793	(26.2%)	--
Other	3	(0.0%)	--
Exhausted ballots	--		268	(8.9%)
Total	3022	(100%)	3022	(100%)

Cary used hand or machine-marked paper ballots that are read on optical scanners manufactured by ES&S. First column choices were tallied at the precinct. The second and third column choices were counted at a central location.

2007

Aspen, Colorado

Aspen, Colorado passed IRV (77%) in November 2007.

Sarasota, Florida

The city of Sarasota, Florida passed IRV (78%) in November 2007.

2008

Santa Fe, New Mexico

On March 4, 2008, the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, passed a referendum for IRV (Called Ranked Choice voting) by a vote of 5659 to 3044 (65% for).

• Charter Amendment 5 – RANKED CHOICE VOTING: Proposing to amend the Santa Fe Municipal Charter, Article IV, to create a new Section 4.06 to require that candidates for municipal office be elected by a majority of voters through a ranked choice voting system that combines the initial vote with an “instant” runoff in a single election. The instant runoff is achieved by allowing voters to rank, in order of their preference, each candidate for mayor, city councilor and municipal judge. If, after counting all voters’ first choices listed on their ballots for an office, no candidate has received a majority of votes cast, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Each ballot listing the eliminated candidate as first choice is then recounted using that ballot’s second choice. If still no candidate for the office has received a majority, the process is repeated until a candidate receives a majority of votes for that office.
• Ranked choice voting would go into effect commencing with the regular municipal election in March 2010 or as soon thereafter when equipment and software for tabulating the votes and allowing correction of incorrectly marked, in-person ballots are available at a reasonable price.

Political party usage

Independence Party of Minnesota (2004 Presidential poll)

In part to increase awareness of the voting method and to demonstrate it in a real-world situation, the Independence Party of Minnesota tested IRV by using it in a straw poll during the 2004 Minnesota caucuses.

The poll allowed a none of the above option which could not be eliminated. Their rules eliminated one weakest candidate at a time, or all candidates in a tie at the bottom. They continued the elimination until only one candidate remained to confirm that this candidate had more support than NOTA.

This summary table shows the first round, and final five rounds, excluding five rounds during which 18 weak candidates were eliminated.

Candidate/Round	1	…	7	8	9	10	11
John Edwards (Democrat)	94 (20.75%)		106 (23.40%)	131 (28.92%)	166 (36.64%)	210 (46.36%)	335 (73.95%)
John F. Kerry (Democrat)	100 (22.08%)		110 (24.28%)	117 (25.83%)	132 (29.14%)	149 (32.89%)	0 (0.00%)
George W. Bush (Republican)	77 (17.00%)		84 (18.54%)	85 (18.76%)	94 (20.75%)	0 (0.00%)
Ralph Nader (none)	70 (15.45%)		73 (16.11%)	78 (17.22%)	0 (0.00%)
Dennis Kucinich (Democrat)	32 (7.06%)		40 (8.83%)	0 (0.00%)
18 others (<10 votes each)	48 (10.60%)		0 (0.00%)
None of the above	32 (7.06%)		39 (8.61%)	40 (8.83%)	50 (11.04%)	61 (13.47%)	66 (14.57%)
Exhausted ballots	0 (0.00%)		1 (0.22%)	2 (0.44%)	11 (2.43%)	33 (7.28%)	52 (11.48%)
Total	453		453	453	453	453	453

Also, the Green Party of Minnesota conducts an annual poll of Minnesota State Fair attendees, where each person ranks their preferences for fair food to better understand how IRV works in a real-world situation.

Historical usage of IRV

1912 Florida, Indiana, Maryland, and Minnesota: for party primaries

In the United States, IRV election laws were first adopted in 1912. Five states (Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Wisconsin and Minnesota) used versions of IRV for party primaries. Of the four states with IRV, only the Minnesota and Maryland law used the standard IRV sequential elimination of bottom candidates, while the others used batch elimination of all but the top two candidates.

After a series of primary elections in which alternate preference votes happened to play no role in determining the winner, this voting procedure was eclipsed in all five states.

By the 1930's all of these preference voting systems had been replaced by other primary election reforms, including the use of a second, or runoff primary in the event of a non-majority outcome.

1974, Ann Arbor, Michigan: city mayor

IRV (called Preferential voting or PV) was adopted for mayoral races in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1974 after a successful ballot initiative sponsored by the local Human Rights Party; the process was used in the 1975 mayoral election. In April 1976 62% of voters voted to repeal PV.

Implementations rejected

According to FairVote, an organization advocating IRV, dozens of states () have entertained instant runoff voting legislation in recent years. For example, in 2008, Vermont governor Jim Douglas vetoed legislation to establishing instant runoff voting for that state's congressional elections starting that year, while in 2003, an amendment to the California State Constitution was proposed (SCA 14) with wide-ranging goals of election reform, including instant runoff voting for statewide offices. In the state of Washington, an initiative seeking to adopt instant runoff voting in 2005 failed to garner enough signatures. The city of Vancouver, Washington voted in 1999 to adopt instant runoff voting and the state legislature enacted enabling legislation in 2004, but the city in 2006 chose not to exercise its option. Instant runoff voting for all state and federal elections was on Alaska's statewide ballot in August 2002, when it was defeated. In the U.S. Congress, the "Voter Choice Act of 2005" H.R.2690 sought to require the use of instant runoff voting for general elections for federal office.

References