The Ireland presidential election will use ranked choice voting
On Friday, Irish voters will go to the polls to choose their next president. Ireland has used ranked choice voting (RCV) in its presidential elections since the republic was founded, and also uses RCV to elect its parliament.
RCV allows more candidates to run for office without playing “spoiler”; for example, seven candidates ran in Ireland’s 2011 presidential election – including several major party nominees and three independents.
This year, one of three candidates on the ballot – Jim Gavin – has dropped out of the race. In a single-choice contest, that could lead to “zombie votes” – votes that are cast for the inactive candidate and are effectively wasted. But thanks to RCV, any votes Gavin receives can count for those voters’ next choice.
Ireland’s experience with RCV shows how the reform can improve American elections, too.
Why does the Ireland presidential election matter?
Ireland’s president is not as powerful as the American president, since most power lies with the Taoiseach (prime minister). However, the Irish president still has a number of important roles: They act as a symbol of the nation, representing Ireland at home and abroad. They sign bills, appoint the Taoiseach based on which party earns the most seats in parliament, and can help raise attention for important issues through their platform.
No wasted votes with ranked choice voting
In American elections, it’s far too common for voters to cast an early ballot for someone who drops out of the race by Election Day – and those ballots are effectively thrown out.
Presidential primaries are often the most egregious examples, since they tend to attract a large number of candidates, and many candidates drop out before all states have voted. For instance, in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, over 3 million voters cast ballots for candidates who dropped out before their vote was counted. In the 2024 Republican presidential primary, over 300,000 voters cast ballots for candidates who left the race before their vote was counted.
This problem doesn’t occur in Ireland. This year, Ireland will have three candidates on the ballot, even though one of them – Jim Gavin – dropped out 19 days before the election, when it was too late to remove his name.
Thanks to RCV, voters who pick Gavin will still have their voices fully heard. Their votes can count for a backup choice.
In elections with several candidates, RCV allows voters to rank backup choices so their vote still counts if their top choice can’t win. In Ireland’s 2011 presidential election, seven candidates ran. The two frontrunners were ranked first by just 68% of voters, meaning nearly a third of voters preferred someone else; thanks to RCV, those voters could vote their conscience and have their vote count for one of the finalists.
Ranked choice voting in other Irish elections
Notably, Ireland doesn’t just use ranked choice voting to pick its president. Ireland also uses the proportional form of RCV to elect the Dáil Éireann – the dominant house of Ireland’s parliament.
Proportional RCV is the gold standard for legislative elections. It promotes majority rule, provides fair representation to minority viewpoints, and decreases polarization all at the same time. For example, following Ireland’s latest parliamentary elections in 2024, a coalition government formed in parliament consisting of two major parties and several independents. Numerous other parties, including Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, and Labour also saw members elected in line with their share of the vote.
As a new report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences notes, providing fair representation to the losing parties of elections can decrease polarization and ensure those parties are more likely to acknowledge elections as legitimate:
Proportional systems are associated with lower levels of political violence globally compared with winner-take-all. Electoral losers also have greater levels of trust in their democratic institutions in proportional systems than those in winner-take-all.
The United States should follow Ireland’s example and adopt RCV and proportional RCV in more elections.
