How does instant runoff voting work?
Instant runoff voting acts like a series of runoff elections. If any candidate receives a majority of the first choice rankings, that candidate is elected. If not, the last place candidate is defeated, just as in a runoff election, and all ballots are counted again, but this time each ballot cast for the defeated candidate counts for the next-choice candidate listed on each of those ballots. This process of eliminating the last place candidate and recounting the ballots continues until one candidate receives a majority of the vote. You can see a short interactive mini-movie of how IRV will work in KC, including how voters rank their ballots and how the ballots are counted, on the web at http://sfIRV.org/vote.
