Instant Runoff Voting FAQs
About Instant-Runoff Voting
For the Student Body Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections starting in 2022, K-State Student Governing Association will be using the Instant-Runoff Voting method, or IRV. The IRV system was approved by Student Senate on October 7, 2021. IRV means that there is no longer a primary election for the Student Body President and Vice President and you have more choices regarding how to allocate your vote for those offices.
To vote using IRV, please rank as many presidential tickets as you feel comfortable. Your most preferred ticket (the ticket you most want to win) should be ranked first, your next most preferred ticket should be ranked second, and so on until you would like to stop. Once you have submitted your ballot, your rankings will be distributed based on your preferences to elect the Student Body President and Vice President preferred by the most voters.
To get a better understanding of IRV, check out this educational video: https://youtu.be/oHRPMJmzBBw
More about how IRV counts your vote
Instant-Runoff Voting takes in everyone’s ballot and initially considers only their first choice. If a candidate receives a majority of first choices, they win! If not, the candidate in last place is eliminated and the ballots that listed that candidate as the top choice are distributed to their next choice. If no majority winner is found, this process of elimination and redistribution occurs again and again until one candidate wins. Ballots are never counted for multiple candidates at once.
If you would like to learn more about Instant-Runoff Voting, the Wikipedia article on IRV has additional details. If you have particular questions about how SGA is using the system, you can read the text of Bill 21/22/12, which Student Senate approved to adopt IRV, and contact Elections Commissioner Natalie Nusz at nnusz@ksu.edu
