Instant Runoff Voting

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is an election system where voters rank candidates, and lower-ranked candidates are eliminated until a majority winner emerges. Current research focuses on understanding IRV's mathematical properties, particularly how ballot length restrictions and voter preference distributions influence election outcomes, often employing geometric models and computational simulations to analyze winner selection. These studies aim to clarify IRV's potential to produce more moderate winners compared to plurality voting and to quantify the impact of design choices like ballot length on election results, offering valuable insights for both political science and the broader field of voting theory.