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Frequently Asked Questions About IRV candidates, allowing a candidate with less overall support to prevail. IRV allows those voters to rank all of their candidates and watch as votes transfer to their candidate with the most support. In partisan races, IRV prevents the possibility of a third party candidate "spoiling" the race by taking enough votes from one major candidate to elect the other. Does IRV save money'? Yes. Traditional two-round, "delayed" runoffs are common around the country. IRV halves the cost of those elections because it determines a majority winner in a single election. Before adopting IRV, for example, San Francisco spent as much as $2 million on each election in its delayed runoff, and statewide runoffs in places such as Texas cost far more. In addition, many states and cities use two rounds of special elections to fill vacated seats and instead could elect a popular winner with IRV in one round of voting. In such situations IRV also reduces the reliance of candidates on special interest donors because they only have to campaign and raise money for one election rather than two. Does I RV affect voter turnout? Yes. Turnout generally increases. IRV gives every voter incentive to participate because your vote still counts even if your first choice candidate is defeated. Also, since IRV only requires one election, the decisive election takes place when turnout is highest, typically November. Does IRV affect campaign debate? Yes. Because IRV may require second and third choice votes to win, candidates have incentive to focus on the issues, to attract voters to their positions and to form coalitions. Negative campaigning and personal attacks are much less effective in an IRV election. W/aere is IR V used? Many places. Ireland uses IRV to elects its president, Australia to elect its House of Representatives, London to elect its mayor, San Francisco to elect its major city offices such as mayor, Utah Republicans to nominate congressional nominees at its state convention, many maj or universities for their student government elections and the American Political Science Association to elect its president. Literally hundreds of jurisdictions, organizations and corporations use IRV to elect leaders. Whom does IRV advantage? IRV advantages the majority, since it ensures that a minority of voters can never defeat a candidate supported by a majority. It also gives the voter more power, since s/he can express a range of choices. Can the voting equipment handle IRV? Modern voting equipment, such as optical scanners and computer touch screens, can handle IRV at no additional cost. Older technologies such as punch cards and lever machines cannot handle IRV, so it doesn't make sense to adopt IRV until new equipment is purchased. In these cases, we recommend legislation authorizing the use of IRV when the equipment is available. For reasons unrelated to IRV, the trend in voting equipment is away from the older technologies, so more and more jurisdictions are Page 2 of 3 http://www. fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm l ; �3;��d