According to the folks at FairVote, student governments at more than half of the thirty highest-ranked colleges and universities in the US News & World Report poll use instant-runoff voting (IRV) in their elections.
With IRV, voters rank candidates by preference, and when the candidate in last place is eliminated, the second-place choice votes from that candidate’s ballots are distributed among those remaining. The process is repeated until one candidate receives majority support. IRV eliminates the need for runoff elections while allowing supporters of candidates who finish behind the leaders to have a say in the final outcome.
FairVote claims that campuses switching to IRV tend to see significant increases in turnout in student government elections.

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October 9, 2008 at 4:05 pm
jake
I share your enthusiasm for instant runoff voting. However, there is one problem. A lot of people don’t know what it is or how it works. I am trying to solve this problem with a website called http://www.TheVotingSite.com. TheVotingSite is a place where users can create and share content. Basically, users create surveys and elections. Other users vote in these surveys and are able to watch the instant runoff voting results in action. I think this is a great way to educate the Youtube and Facebook generation about instant runoff voting. I hope you check out my site.