Instant Runoff Voting

For the last several years, ASUW has run its elections using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which is a system in which voters rank as many candidates as they want in their personal order of preference. This system means that unless a candidate gets a clear 50% +1 majority in the first tally of the votes, candidates who come in second or third have a good chance of coming from behind to win.

Traditionally, in ASUW elections, there are dozens of minor write in candidates for President, and few of them receive more than a handful of votes. Those voters sometimes put a mainstream candidate as their second or third choice, allowing their votes to actually influence the election.

In IRV, there are two strategies to win: 1. Come out hard and strong to win in the first round, and 2. Accumulate votes slowly by claiming the second place on your opponents ballots.

Strategy #1 requires a lot of legwork and a lot of effort. It is a very bold strategy and requires a lot of confidence. This strategy means you have to solidify a strong base of support and work to get that 50%+1 vote. If you miss calculate, if your base of #1 votes is not large enough, you'll fail.

Strategy #2 is the more traditional ASUW route, at least in years when there are multiple tickets. A ticket, or candidate, needs to build a solid base that will make sure they survive the first serious rounds, but also need to reach out to the communities that make up the bases for their rivals.

A good plan is to combine the two strategies.

Let's take a look at the tickets we have running this year. I'll list them out and with what I think their largest voter bases are, then we can discuss what I expect, just based on past performance in those communities.

Sam Martin, base: ECC and Senate
Vote Big, base: Christian and Greek houses
Team Legacy, base: ECC and RHSA
Husky Nation, base: ASUW and RHSA
One Campus, base: ASUW and Greek

Based on how active they are, how large their facebook groups are, and their coverage in the Daily, I fully expect One Campus to come out on top in the first rounds of IRV, but probably not enough to win out right. There are five different groups out there trying to get people to vote, so I doubt One Campus, no matter how organized, will be able to claim 50%+1 in the first round.

Based on the size of their tickets and how organized they've been so far, I expect TL and HN to be in second and third. I won't call in which order they'll finish just yet.

If Vote Big is able to tap the support that Dawg Life saw a few years back, they might be able to upset some of this. That year, there were just over 4,000 votes cast, and Dawg Life was able to get more than 50% in one race and was three votes shy of that mark in another race. I'm fairly confident this year's election will bring in more than 4,000 votes, but if Chris and Shauna do their work they could claim one, or both, of the top two spots. If they do not do their work, if they don't get out there and motivate their base, their votes will likely be split between OC and HN the round after they drop.

Sam Martin looks as if he will draw votes away from TL due to the ECC connections, as well as drawing some away from OC because of his Senate connections. Here is where it is tricky... if Sam plays his cards right he'll be either #1 or #2 for all of the ECC voters and many of the Senate voters. If he coordinates his message correctly and plays each crowd correctly at the forums, he could take enough of the undecided voters to leap into the top three.

The race is no where close to being done, and any of the tickets could jump into the top two or three, but it will take a lot of work. The smaller two tickets will need to make sure that their bases are solid but also reach out to as many other groups as possible. The larger tickets, One Campus specifically, will need to make sure that their base voters are content and will actually show up to the vote. The smaller tickets will be doing their best to nip away at their base, taking voters where they are able.

My advice to the small tickets: keep working, you all have a good chance if you plan properly and work hard.

My advice to the large tickets: don't get complacent. The smaller tickets could come from behind and take you.