Exhausted ballot
Ballot exhaustion in RCV
A ballot becomes exhausted when a voter:
- Exhausted Choices: a voter can list their preferences such that when applied to a runoff round it is for a candidate who is already eliminated - the vote is taken out of the election
- Overvotes - example: voter accidentally ranks two candidates as their first choice
- Undervotes - example: voter ranks only one candidate on their ballot and that candidate is eliminated from the contest before the final round
This article of focusing on the first category "Exhausted Choices.
Ballot Exhaustion occurs when rankings on a voter’s ballot prevent their vote from being counted and determining the election’s end result. The ballot is discarded. These votes do not influence the final outcome.
Exhausted Choices
Ballot exhaustion occurs when a ballot is no longer countable in a tally as all of the candidates marked on the ballot are no longer in the contest.
An exhausted choice occurs when a voter ranks only candidates that are eliminated from a race.
For clarity - it is better to ignore overvotes and undervotes in the first round of tabulation as “exhausted votes” because voters could make the same mistake on a ballot in an election decided by plurality.
In other words, votes that are exhausted in the second and subsequent rounds of tabulation are purely a consequence of using ranked-choice voting method tabulation algorithm.
Scientific articles / studies
We analyze data taken from images of more than 600,000 ballots cast by voters in four recent local elections.
We document a problem known as ballot “exhaustion,” which results in a substantial number of votes being discarded in each election.
As a result of ballot exhaustion, the winner in all four of our cases receives less than a majority of the total votes cast, a finding that raises serious concerns about IRV and challenges a key argument made by the system's proponents.
Second, IRV does not ensure that the winning candidate will have received a majority of all votes cast, only a majority of all valid votes in the final round of tallying. Thus, it is possible that the winning candidate will fall short of an actual majority when a substantial number of ballots are eliminated, or “exhausted,” during the vote redistribution process. Third, and related to the previous point, there is some probability that a voter's ballot will become exhausted, eliminating their influence over the final outcome.
If at any point the voter did not rank a next choice (assuming her most favored choice or choices are eliminated), or all of the choices on the voter's ballot have been eliminated, the ballot is “exhausted” d meaning that it is excluded from future vote redistributions, and it does not affect the final outcome of the election. The ballot, in essence, is discarded. The process ends once a candidate receives a majority of the remaining valid votes.
Similar confusing terms
- spoiled ballots
- over-voted
- under-voted
- inactive choices
- disqualified ballots
- discarded ballots
- exhausted choices
- spent ballots
- wasted votes
links
- https://fairvote.org/rcv_elections_and_runoffs_exhausted_votes_vs_exhausted_voters_in_the_bay_area/
- https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_exhaustion
- Ballot (and voter) “exhaustion” under Instant Runoff Voting: An examination of four ranked-choice elections
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