(Approved by the Faculty, December 16, 1999)
Ballots in the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) method are cast and votes are counted as follows:
In each election, regardless of the number of vacancies to be filled, each voter must rank the candidates consecutively (i.e., 1, 2, 3, etc.) in order of highest to lowest preference, but need not assign rankings to all the candidates.
To fill each vacancy, votes are first assigned to the candidate who on each ballot is the most highly preferred from among those candidates still remaining. If in this manner no candidate receives a majority of votes from the ballots that have not yet been temporarily set aside, then the candidate with the fewest votes is temporarily eliminated, and the votes for that candidate are reassigned to the candidate who on each of those ballots is the most highly preferred from among those candidates still remaining. This process of candidate elimination and ballot reassignment is repeated until one candidate receives a majority of votes from the ballots that have not yet been temporarily set aside.
At any point in the vote counting process for each vacancy, if none of the candidates remaining in the election have been ranked on a given ballot to be assigned or reassigned, then that ballot is temporarily set aside (for that vacancy, only).
If at any stage of candidate elimination and ballot reassignment, two or more candidates are tied with the fewest votes, then the candidate among those tied who received the fewest number of highest preference votes is temporarily eliminated.
If the repeated process of candidate elimination and vote reassignment leads to a tie between the only two remaining candidates, then the winner is the candidate who received the greater number of highest preference votes.
If more than one vacancy is to be filled for the same type of office, then for each vacancy in succession, those candidates already elected will first be eliminated, all other eligible candidates will be included (including those candidates who had been temporarily eliminated in determining the candidate(s) already elected), and all ballots (including those ballots that had been temporarily set aside in determining the candidate(s) already elected) are to be recounted as described in Section II above.
If more than one vacancy is to be filled and the eligibility of candidates on the ballot is limited by other governing factors (such as restrictions on the number of committee members permitted from the same department) after the first vacancy is filled, then all remaining candidates no longer eligible due to those limitations shall be eliminated before the votes for any subsequent vacancies are tallied.