The Problem with Instant Runoff Voting

IRV can prevent the spoiler effect, in which a minor party splits the vote with a major party and tilts the election toward the other major party, hurting its own cause. IRV therefore seems to allow supporters of minor parties to cast protest votes without ``wasting'' their votes. This advantage is illusory, however, because it applies only as long as those minor parties are sure to lose. As soon as one of those minor parties threatens to become a major party and actually win, its supporters vote for them at the risk of hurting their own cause, just as in the current plurality system. Under IRV, votes for minor parties are therefore symbolic at best, or dangerous at worst. An example will illustrate why.

Suppose my true preference is for the Libertarian first and the Republican second. Suppose further that the Libertarians are the strongest ``minor'' party. At some round of the IRV counting process, all the candidates will be eliminated except the Republican, the Democrat, and the Libertarian. If the Libertarian then has the fewest first-choice votes, he or she will be eliminated and my vote will transfer to the Republican, just as I wanted. But what if the Republican is eliminated before the Libertarian? Unless all the Republican votes transfer to the Libertarian, which is extremely unlikely, the Democrat might then beat the Libertarian. If so, I will have helped the Democrat win by not strategically ranking the Republican first. But that's the same situation I'm in now if I vote my true preference for the Libertarian!

The example is hardly contrived. The ``lesser-of-two-evils'' problem is almost guaranteed to rear its ugly head again under IRV. Until a minor party is strong enough to win, a first-choice vote for them is essentially only symbolic. After a minor party is strong enough to win, on the other hand, a vote for them could have the same spoiler effect that it could have under the current plurality system. Hence, if IRV is ever actually adopted, we will likely remain stuck in the old two-party system, just as Australia still is, despite the fact that it has used IRV since around 1920. On the other hand, if minor parties do somehow manage to become competitive under IRV, they could wreak havoc with our entire system of government. As in our current system, the stronger a minor party becomes, the more it could hurt its own cause.

In other words, IRV can have either of two completely opposite effects, depending on whether a third party is truly competitive or not. Before a third party is competitive, the effect of IRV is equivalent to a plurality system in which all supporters of minor parties are somehow convinced to abandon their principles and vote for the ``lesser of two evils.'' Yes, those voters get the satisfaction of knowing they voted for the party and the candidate they truly prefer, but their first choice is eventually eliminated and has no effect on who actually wins. After a third party is competitive, on the other hand, the effect if IRV is equivalent to a plurality system in which many voters are somehow convinced to forget about strategy and vote sincerely. As most intelligent voters know, that would wreak havoc with the stability of our political system.

IRV has been said to make strategic or defensive voting very difficult. But strategic voting is difficult under IRV only after more than two parties are truly competitive. Before that time, strategic voting is identical to what it is in our current plurality system (vote for the ``lesser of two evils''). As soon as more than two parties are truly competitive, strategic voting does indeed become very difficult under IRV. However, this difficulty, far from being an advantage, is actually a huge disadvantage. Voters will then need to to vote strategically but will be unable to figure out how to do so! IRV could therefore throw our political system into chaos, which we don't need anymore than we need to decide elections by throwing dice. A good election method minimizes the need for strategic voting, but IRV could make strategic voting difficult without reducing the need for it.

IRV does have one possible advantage over our current plurality system: it could be a step toward true electoral reform in the form of Condorcet voting, which is far superior to IRV. The actual voting mechanics of IRV and Condorcet voting are identical. In both IRV and Condorcet voting, the voters rank the candidates, and the required voting equipment is the same for each. The only difference is the actual algorithm (and its implementation software) for determining the winner. In other words, the ``front end'' is common for IRV and Condorcet voting, and only the ``back end'' is different. From a purely technical perspective, that ``back end'' software would be very easy to replace, but the political perspective is another story altogether, of course. If IRV is widely adopted, it could be transitional to true reform--or it could become entrenched.

IRV has other serious problems too, which are explained in more detail elsewhere at the website. It is an erratic voting system because ranking a candidate higher can actually cause the candidate to lose, and ranking a candidate lower can cause the candidate to win. As if that weren't bad enough, it can also fail to elect a candidate who is preferred over each of the other candidates by a majority of the voters. It is also much more difficult to implement with security and integrity because the votes cannot be summed as in most other election methods.

In summary, IRV is a deceptive and potentially dangerous non-reform masquerading as a reform. If adopted, the cure could be worse than the disease. Once the inadequacy of IRV becomes clear in actual practice, it could disillusion the public with electoral reform and thereby close the door to true reform. The stakes are too high to get this one wrong. We can only hope that the well-intentioned and devoted advocates of IRV are still open-minded enough to recognize this reality. The battle for electoral reform will be difficult enough without insurmountable ignorance within the reform movement itself.