Instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as the alternative vote (AV), transferable vote, (single-seat) ranked-choice voting (RCV), or preferential voting, is a voting system used to elect a single candidate from a field of more than two candidates. It is a preferential voting system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference, rather than voting for a single candidate. Ballots are initially counted for each elector’s top choice. If a candidate secures more than half of these votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, whoever is in last place is eliminated from the race. On any ballot ranking this defeated candidate, all the candidates ranked behind him or her move up one ranking. The top choices on all the ballots are then counted again. This process repeats until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters. When the field is reduced to two, it has become an “instant runoff” that allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head.

– Wikipedia

As an example, let us presume the following election:

President Election Ballot: Candy, Bob, Tim
President-Elect Ballot: Candy, Bob

All votes are made ahead of time as ‘absentee ballots’ (includes online votes) or are made in-person at the election meeting. At the meeting, the race for President starts. Suppose the election for President has the following votes cast:

Ballot A Ballot B Ballot C Ballot D Ballot E
1. Bob 1. Candy 1. Candy 1. Tim 1. Bob
2. Tim 2. Bob 2. Bob 2. Candy 2. Candy
3. Candy 3. Tim 3. Tim 3. Bob 3. Tim

First preferences: Bob, Candy, Candy, Tim, Bob

No one receives a majority (>50%) of the votes, so the lowest scoring candidate is removed from this ballot, Tim. The resulting ballot for President is:

Ballot A Ballot B Ballot C Ballot D Ballot E
1. Bob 1. Candy 1. Candy 1. Bob
2. Bob 2. Bob 2. Candy 2. Candy
3. Candy 3. Bob

First preferences: Bob, Candy, Candy, Candy, Bob

Candy receives the majority of the votes and is elected president. This makes sense because more people preferred Candy to Bob than the other way around. Since Candy was also on the President-Elect ballot, she is removed from it. Then there is only one candidate left for President-Elect and that candidate (Bob) is automatically elected regardless of any ballots cast of the presumed election.

Voters may also choose to abstain for any candidate on any ballot. With simplyvoting.com, your votes are securely processed and accurately tabulated by an independently managed service, and easily accessed by you with your receipt for vote verification but not identifiable by anyone else. Raw data from an election such as the one above might be as below:

Receipt President President-Elect Secretary
3DR4 Candy, Bob, Tim Candy, Bob Abstain
H528 Candy, Bob, Tim Candy, Bob Peter
TX55 Bob, Tim, Candy Candy, Bob Peter
VSRG Bob, Candy, Tim Bob, Candy Peter
Z5F5 Tim, Candy, Bob Bob, Candy Abstain

All online votes and results are not accessible by anyone until the end of the election. The raw online data is then added to any results from the paper ballot at the in-person meeting to determine the final board – here, it is Candy, Bob, and Peter respectively. You may try out the online election process at this link with any of the below names and passwords:

Name Elector ID Password
Barack Obama bobama ZYV9K
Al Gore agore NP97Y
Donald Trump dtrump JWSV8
John McCain jmccain VDYFQ
Hilary Clinton hclinton ZFRNR
Bernie Sanders bsanders MWVCR
Gary Johnson gjohnson XGV8G
Jill Stein jstein D5G3F
Mike Pence mpence VNHX9
Tim McKaine tmckaine 4GCCV