In October, town-election voters in Cary faced an unfamiliar voting method and had additional choices to make. But not surprisingly, Cary's performance was above average, just as Cary is above average in income and educational levels and Internet  connections.
Hendersonville, however, had poorer results -- over one third of voters polled were not prepared to rank their choices. Instant runoff voting relies on voter education, something  North Carolina does poorly. Our state has the highest "undervote" rate for president in the country, because voters can't even vote a straight ticket correctly. 

http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/IRV_Jan_14_Worrisome_realities_mar_instant_runoff.pdf 

We had IRV here in Ann Arbor in the 1970s and there is an IRV committee now.  I attended a few meetings, but did not get involved.  The idea has its advantages.  However, the arithmetic can lead to surprise upsets.

Instant runoff voting has its first hurdle - a lawsuit
By ROCHELLE OLSON, Star Tribune
December 20, 2007

Minneapolis voters overwhelmingly approved the charter change in 2006, and city officials have been preparing to use it during the 2009 city election.

The method requires voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gains a majority (50 percent plus 1 vote), the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped.

Then the second-place votes cast by supporters of that candidate are added to the remaining candidates. The process continues until one candidate gains a majority.

The suit noted that each victorious city candidate in 2006 won with a plurality, meaning they won despite receiving less than 50 percent of the votes cast.

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/12665581.html

An associated problem -- antecedent to this -- is that of political party primaries.  As it is now, in many places, the Democrats and Republicans get the public to pay for their internal processes.  Five Democrats want to run for mayor.  Fine, let them decide among themselves.  Instead, they all run in a public primary -- as do the five Republicans who want to be mayor.  (This is, in fact, one reason that in the past I chose to run for office as a Libertarian: I get to run through the primaries all the way to November.)  Instead, let the so-called "major" parties have their conventions and submit their slate and so on, as would any other coalition.

 There are non-partisan races, of course. Here in Michgan, judges are non-partisan.  When I ran for the community college board of trustees, that was non-partisan.  (Some state university boards are partisan elections, while other state u boards are appointed by the governor.)