THE WAY DEMOCRACY WILL BE
For Immediate Release / July 9th 2008

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Students use Instant Runoff Voting at U.S. Universities
Student elections on campuses and new adoptions showcase IRV's popularity
Contact: Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote,


Instant runoff voting (IRV) has been gaining momentum among universities as the preferred mechanism for student elections. Already used by more than half of the nation's top thirty universities for student government elections on campus (based on rankings by U.S. News and World Report), the voting system has been adopted by students for their elections in more than forty colleges and universities nationwide.

The Spring 2008 student election season brought another successful round of IRV, including first-time use at the University of Iowa, with its highest turnout student election ever. Other recent adoptions of IRV include the University of California at San Diego, UCLA, Santa Fe Community College (FL) and North Carolina State. Overall, FairVote estimates at least 30,600 students* voted in IRV elections for student government in the past year. FairVote has assembled a collection of colleges and universities using IRV, along with information on election results, bylaws language and “best practices” for administering IRV elections at:

http://www.fairvote.org/irv/?page=57

Adopting Fair Student Elections
Interest in fair elections systems for student elections around the country has been gaining momentum. More and more schools are following the recommendations of Robert's Rules of Order and adopting instant runoff voting (also called "preferential voting") for single winner elections like student body president. Additionally, some schools have added the choice voting method of full representation for their legislative elections. Georgetown University, University of California at San Diego, University of Iowa, North Carolina State University and Santa Fe Community College all adopted instant runoff voting over the two past academic years (Santa Fe Community College being the first community college to implement IRV).

The Spring 2008 student election season brought another successful round of instant runoff voting (IRV) elections, including the University of Iowa's highest turnout student election ever. Recent elections at Georgetown, MIT, CalTech, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, Stanford, Princeton and many others and the implementation of IRV this year at some of the best universities of the country also showcase IRV's growing use on college campuses. Each time IRV has allowed better voter choice and wider voter participation by accommodating multiple candidates in single seat races and assuring that a "spoiler effect" will not result in undemocratic outcomes. IRV allows all voters to vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate, and it ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a majority of the voters.

Not only are many colleges switching to IRV, already more than 50% of the nation's top thirty universities have adopted instant runoff voting and/or choice voting for student government elections on campus (based on rankings by U.S. News and World Report).

NEW!!! [ List of colleges and universities using IRV ]
http://fairvote.org/?page=1975

how this works informative annimation on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLVAF6M-FcQ