WHAT IF VOTERS DON'T RANK ALL THE CANDIDATES?
What happens if voters don’t rank all the candidates? This report, co-authored by the Herbert Institute at Utah Valley University, examines “inactive ballots,” (also known as "exhausted ballots") and explains why they are an unproblematic feature of instant runoff voting (IRV, also known as ranked choice voting).
Inactive, or exhausted ballots, are any ballots that do not contribute to the outcome between the final two candidates. In an IRV election, this mostly happens when the voter chooses not to rank all of the candidates. Inactive ballots are equivalent to votes for minor candidates in single-choice elections, or to turnout dropoff in runoff elections, in that some voters do not contribute to the decision between frontrunners. However, with IRV, voters can vote for their favorite candidate and designate backup choices, increasing the chance that their vote will count in the tally between finalists.
Inactive ballots constitute a small percentage of all ballots in IRV elections. Not ranking certain candidates is an active choice and expresses a preference itself; some voters will be consciously indifferent between some candidates or do not want to cast a vote for someone they truly don’t like.
This report shows that inactive ballots arise in nearly every election method, but IRV results in fewer ballots becoming inactive than single-choice voting. This is demonstrated by real-world examples from Maine, New York City, San Francisco, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
