NYSIRV is an information advocacy with the mission of dispersing information in support of adopting Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for all New York State primaries and local elections. IRV assures that candidates for public office will be elected by majority vote in primaries and elections.

IRV, or "same-day" runoff, allows voters to select their (back-up) runoff candidates at the same time as their first choice. Voters indicate their first and runoff choices by ranking them on their ballots, 1, 2, 3. Majority winners are determined in one election using the runoff rankings, rather than having to wait several weeks and voting all over again in a "delayed" runoff.

The IRV system passed in March 2002 in San Francisco and in 51 towns in Vermont. In May 2002, Utah Republicans used IRV in their primaries to nominate their Congressional candidates, where in two races there were, respectively, ten and twelve contenders. In the district contest with twelve candidates,the leader in the first round with 24% was defeated by majority in the instant runoff by a candidate that had 21% in the first round. Several other states now have IRV initiatives pending. IRV has been used successfully in Ireland and Australia for decades.

No Wasted Votes, No Spoiler Candidates

IRV does away with the notion of "spoiler" candidates and "wasted" votes. Since no vote is wasted, citizens can more readily vote their consciences, and if their first choice candidate is eliminated, their (second, third, et. al.) preferences will still count.  With IRV, there is no such thing as a "spoiler," and there is no need for voters to plan to vote strategically.

In the 2002 primary elections in New York State, a runoff would have been needed to determine majority winners in 24 of 150 multi-candidate races, including 5 for Congress, 4 for State Senate, and 15 for State Assembly. In four districts for the Assembly, Democratic primaries had four candidates in each race. Queens' District 31 had six Democrat candidates. Manhattan's District 69 had eight Democrat primary candidates, and winner garnered only 34% of the votes, meaning that two of three voters preferred someone else. But it could have been even less representative...with eight candidates in the contest it was possible to win with as little as 13% of the vote.

Sounds unlikely? In the 1977 Democratic Primary for New York City's Mayor, Ed Koch won the first ballot with less than 20% in a contest with five other stellar candidates: New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo, Mayor Abe Beame, Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton, and Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo. Koch and Cuomo, who faced off in a separate runoff election, had less than 40 percent of the vote between them, meaning more than three of five voter's first choices did not make it to the runoff. Cuomo made it to the runoff with 19%, just edging Beame (18%) and Abzug (17%). Some voters for the four eliminated candidates must have felt they wasted their votes.



Nationally in 2002, only 2% of Congressional races were decided short of majority, i.e., by plurality: 3 of 34 Senate seats and 5 of 434 House seats. Of the 36 races for Governor, however, 9 state contests were decided short of majority. New York State was one of them. Governor Pataki won 49.4% of the vote in the contest with Carl McCall and Tom Golisano. Had IRV been in place, Tom Golisano, having received the fewest votes, would have been eliminated and his voters' second choices would have been added to the totals for Governor Pataki and Carl McCall, assuring a majority winner. Governor Pataki would likely have won by a landslide in an instant runoff, as Tom Golisano siphoned off 14.3% of the total votes, predominantly from George Pataki.

Replaces Costly Runoff Elections

IRV eliminates the need for voters to return to the polls for what can be an expensive runoff election. In the 2001 Democratic Primary for Mayor in New York City, the special runoff election between Mark Green and Freddie Ferrer cost the city $10 million to administer, a waste of precious taxpayer money in a time of deficits.

Consider, too, that voter turnout for runoffs is usually significantly smaller than in the original elections. Lighter turnouts in runoff elections result in candidates winning with smaller support of the overall electorate. Officials elected by fewer voters can be hampered in their ability to get things done because of their lack of a perceived mandate.

Discourages Negative Campaigning

The head-to-head combat that typically comes with runoff elections can be self-destructive. A good example is the 2001 runoff in the Democractic primary for New York City Mayor between Mark Green and Freddie Ferrer, where heated campaigning made it difficult for Green, the primary winner, to mobilize Ferrer's supporters in the general election. In a field of three or more candidates - with IRV - there is likely to be less personal attack campaigning, since - in order to win by majority - leading candidates may depend upon the transfer of support from eliminated candidates. IRV, therefore, promises to lead to more substantive debates, dialogue, and higher voter participation.

Endorsements Growing

IRV has received favorable editorial support from USA Today, The Washington Post, Tom Wicker (the former Op/Ed writer for The New York Times in the internet publication, TomPaine.commonsense), The New Yorker, and Time Magazine. The IRV system is used by the American Political Science Association to elect its officers, and is proliferating at colleges and universities to elect student body officers, including Stanford, Harvard, MIT, John Hopkins, University of Maryland, University of California-Berkeley, University of Illinois, Vassar College. IRV has been used to elect officials in Cambridge, MA, and is a proven method for voting in major elections in Australia, Ireland, and Great Britain, where higher voter turnout is attributed to the increased debate and dialogue IRV engenders.

NYS-IRV

www.nysirv.org

February, 2007