In the
alternative vote
Instant-runoff voting (IRV; ranked-choice voting (RCV), preferential voting, alternative vote) is a single-winner ranked voting election system where one or more eliminations are used to simulate runoff elections. When no candidate has a ...
, ballot exhaustion occurs when a voter's ballot can no longer be counted, because all candidates on that ballot have been eliminated from an election.
Contributors to ballot exhaustion include:
# Voter exhaustion (i.e. time or effort constraints),
#
Protest votes intended to oppose all unranked candidates,
#
Strategic truncation,
# Jurisdictions that impose limits on how many preferences voters can express,
# The elimination of popular candidates who have many 2nd, 3rd, etc. preferences in the early stages of a vote.
This may occur because the voter chooses not to fill out a complete preference ranking, or because the ballot format itself limits the number of preferences that may be expressed. This results in "exhausted" or "inactive" ballots. For example, in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
, the city limits voters to 3 rankings of candidates on ballots for city elections.
References
{{poli-term-stub
Political terminology
Voting