Instant runoff
Each voter writes all candidates' names in order of preference. Initially, each person's vote goes to his/her first choice candidate. If no candidate receives a majority of votes, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the votes for that candidate are redistributed to those voters' second choice candidates. If still no candidate has a majority of votes, then another candidate is eliminated in the same manner. This process continues until a candidate receives a majority of votes.
Instant runoff is very similar to exhaustive ballot. Instant runoff is quicker because you only vote once but exhaustive ballot has more thorough debate, with opportunity for discussion between each round of voting.
Benefits
- Majoritarian—a candidate must receive a majority of votes to win.
- Can take much less time than exhaustive ballot, the other strongly majoritarian method.
- Later no harm—the order in which you rank candidates lower on your ballot cannot hurt (or help) candidates listed higher on your ballot.
Disadvantages
- Strategic voting is possible, although the opportunity for strategic voting is small.
Recommended when
- You want a strongly majoritarian voting method and your organization routinely has more than four candidates for a position.
Not recommended when
- You want a consensus voting method.
- You want a strongly majoritarian voting method and your organization rarely has more than four candidates for a position. In this case, choose exhaustive ballot.