>

I disagree. With the first past the post system, it's more likely for a far left candidate to win a Democratic primary in a blue area and go on to win the R vs D general, than for a Far-Left Party candidate to win a general with vote splitting because there's a Center-Left Party, Left Party, and Center-Right Party candidates all on the ticket.
I would argue that you are much more likely to have extremist in the US system, because primaries allow any nut job with enough name recognition to use the major party infrastructure to win a general. While in parliamentary systems, you might have more left-leaning parties, but all candidates still must be im good graces of the party leadership to get a party's nomination.
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Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >

You are correct that IRV is somewhat better than FPTP for all the reasons you mention.
However, it is only slightly better.  In real-life elections with single winners, it tends to mimic the outcomes and problems of FPTP, especially in terms of heavily favoring a two-party system.
There are much better systems available that have all the benefits you mentioned, but much more strongly, and with less weird behaviors and distortion of outcomes.  Condorcet and Borda count are the most technically optimal methods, but they're a little harder to implement and explain; Approval voting has basically the same outcomes while being very simple and easy to implement, and is probably the best system overall.
Everyone should be aware that the reason the existing two-party structure has been pushing IRV really hard is that it also favors and recreates the two-party system in the way that FPTP does.  Basically, they are co-opting the movement for voting reform and turning it towards something that still favors them, instead of something that would break their duopoly and reduce their power.
People should not fall for this, and demand that voting reform efforts be channeled towards things that are better than IRV, and that will actually shake things up.  Again, I suggest Approval voting as the best method everyone should get behind. >

Ok I came into this post ready to defend ranked choice but thanks to you I can see I didn't actually know as much about it as I thought I had. I also hadn't even considered there were other, better options. Thank you for this, it is very informative. 
!delta >

Thanks, it's really a fascinating topic!  That paper I linked is a good place to start learning about it, and if you google the different voting methods mentioned there you can find tons more information and research about them.  Good luck! >

Thanks! This is why I love this subreddit >

Have you considered MMP? In MMP, districts are expanded so that there are multiple seats in each district, which are then assigned proportionately based on the percentages of votes secured. Let's say a new MMP district looks like this:
Right (60% total)
20% MAGA
30% Republican
10% Libertarian
Left (40% total)
20% Moderate democrat
10% Progressive
10% Socialist
Assuming there are ten seats per district, each party gets at least one seat. But, with no party having a clear majority, there are several possibilities for a coalition. You could feasibly have a right MAGA/Lib/Rep coalition, a moderate Rep/Dem coalition, a leftist Dem/Soc/Prog/Lib coalition, etc. This system essentially forces different parties to cooperate and compromise to find a solution to political problems that are, at the very least, acceptable to a majority of people. It has all the benefits of RC, but goes several steps further to enable a more representative democracy. 
To address your points: MMP is more effective at promoting third parties than ranked choice, and often forces multiple parties to rule by the coalition, thus mitigating the "winner take all" consequence of FPtP or RC. 
MMP does not require multiple voting rounds and allows for new ideas to be integrated directly by the parties that advanced them initially, rather than relying on these ideas to trickle into the agendas of mainstream candidates. >

A) That's not MMP, that's PR. MMP is what Germany uses- some members are elected from single-member districts, while others are from party lists.
B) Neither system works for single-winner offices like the presidency or governorships. >

I'm assuming you know all this, but I'm just leaving this here for anyone that's interested (I nerd out over voting systems a lot)
To put a finer point on this, Proportional Representation (PR) represents a class of voting systems that satisfy a mathematical condition called Proportionality for Solid Coalitions (PSC). Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) satisfies PSC and is therefore a PR voting system.
/u/dean84921 described a PR system that isn't MMP because it doesn't have the "mixed" element; part of the body being elected is elected through one method, and the other part has its seats distributed so that the entire body is proportional. Germany achieved this through having 2 MPs for each constituency; one elected through First Past The Post (FPTP, most votes takes all, AKA one of the voting systems whomst is bad) and the other selected from statewide party lists to ensure the Bundestag is proportional to the party vote. In the UK, where we call it the Additional Member System (AMS), Scotland, Wales and London elects local representatives through FPTP and regional MPs through a party vote, which is used to make sure the party distribution in the assembly reflects the part vote as best as possible. >

This still runs into the same problem that ultimately, you’re electing a single candidate for a specific district/region/whatever, who doesn’t really represent a potentially very large minority of the voting public. In, say, US congressional elections, you could still end up with all districts going to the same party even when a sizable minority in the state doesn’t support that party (and it is also very vulnerable to gerrymandering). 
Proportional representation is a better system. >

The problem I have with proportional representation is the selection style of candidates.
How exactly could you do that in a fair manner? >

The problem with proportional representation is they make bigger delegations. New Zealand has multiple representatives per district. Australia has 12 Senators per state. You can do that kind of thing with populations in the 7 or 8 digit range, but countries with a large population are more limited to what they can do without also radically overhauling the way electoral districts are allocated. Not saying they couldn't or shouldn't do it anyway, it just increases the complication factor, which generally people are loathe to take on. >

For Wyoming to have even 2 representatives, there would need to be 811 representatives total. And double-member districts aren't very common because it just guarantees a seat for the top 2 parties- which are mostly just the two largest ones. For Wyoming to get 3, there would be 1,405. 
The logistical problems with a legislature that large should be obvious. >

I do not see any insurmountable or even moderate logistic problems with paying a few extra salaries. More representatives means each one has proportionately less to worry about and needs fewer resources to get the job done I would think. 
What are these obvious hurdles I am missing? >

Communication amongst the delegates at large becomes more difficult as the number rises. Debate becomes more difficult. Finding consensus becomes more difficult. Housing, staffing, parking, office space and equipment, etc. It's quite a bit more than just a few extra salaries. >

Communication becomes easier when your representative has to speak for fewer people. 
Debate in the U.S. House of Representatives is already a joke. 
Consensus would work just as it does now. Get a majority and let the outliers make protest votes to appease their personal constituencies. Getting 2181 votes is not that much more difficult than getting 218 when the vast majority are voting the party line anyway. 
Staffing can be reduced when an individual representative needs to personally do much less. Offices and equipment can be rented. 
Housing and parking? I should have to share a representative with over 700,000 other people because of housing and parking? Come on man. These complaints are pretty damned petty when talking about how to properly represent 332 million people. >

Ranked Choice is inferior to STAR Voting in every way. 
RCV: rank top 3 preferences. If #1 is under say 50%, remove lowest count candidates and add your #2 to current count. 
STAR: give 1-5 points to every candidate you like. Add them. Runoff. 
That's it. It's simple to count, simple to analyze, simple to scale up. 
What happens in an RCV audit? You have to redo the computation. What if you have 150M votes? You need full strings for every single vote. No predictions are accurate. You can't trust national reporting as votes come in. 
And worse, RCV has a spoiler effect. Because your #2 only gets your vote if your #1 loses, #2 can lose an election because your endorsement of them was held hostage. Strategic voting is to only vote for popular people. 
STAR doesn't care. STAR is add the points up. It's simple. It's something you can update hourly and anyone across the world can understand. Big number wins. >

Apart from overcoming Arrow's impossibility theorem due to being a cardinal voting system, STAR has the added benefit of virtually always picking the Condorcet winner in any real life application. >

Has ðat been proven?  I know it's highly likely to but I've always hesitated to say it guarentees ðe condorcet candidate will win. >

Nah it's not a Condorcet meθod, it's just highly likely because of ðe automatic runoff stage and ðe high number of voters involved.
EDIT: It does guarantee that no Condorcet loser will ever win, which is nearly as good (and better than approval and score/range voting in that regard). >

Condorcet loser is a pretty interestin' idea I hadn't þought of, and yeah I guess if STAR protects against a condorcet loser winnin' ðat alone makes it ðe objectively best option discussed as of yet >

Ranked choice voting doesn’t solve the problem of systems eventually skewing towards two parties because you still have the spoiler effect with winner take all districts.
The only way you solve that problem is through party proportionate voting - but there you are effectively eschewing the idea of voting for individuals and highly local representatives and acknowledging the reality of parties and going all in on them. 
Optimizing for local representatives vs more diverse aggregate representatives is somewhat philosophical.
Multi-party systems aren’t inherently better either, because inevitably it just pushes the consensus building into party coalitions post election - which may then result in a coalition unexpected by the voters. They tend to be less stable too, with coalitions collapsing - you see this all the time with parliaments.
Ultimately the root problem here is people tend to self-sort into more homogenous communities.
I think as long as you some for competitive elections you’re in a reasonable spot. >


They tend to be less stable too, with coalitions collapsing - you see this all the time with parliaments.

This is somewhat by design though. It's a feature of parliamentary systems that the executive and the parliament can't diverge too far from each other. When that happens you get elections.
In contrast to the US where you can have a President from one party and the Congress from another party and you get grid-lock. I'll take the early elections over two years of bickering and nothing getting done. >

This discussion seems kind of American centric. The question is not to rank or not to rank. The question is, single member districts or multi member districts? (Spoiler: its multi member districts)
Single member districts are what America had now: one person wins in the district. But consider this, if there are 2 candidates from opposing parties, A gets 49% of the vote, B gets 51% of the vote, wouldn't the best idea be to let them  both win? Afterall, it's called REPRESENTATIVE democracy. The point is for people to be represented. How are the 49% of people being represented if their favored candidate isnt the one representing them?
It doesn't just have to be 2 candidates either. You can make a district much larger, so that there are 8 spots to fill. Or you can keep it smaller, and allow 3 spots to be filled. You can also do a hybrid, where you get 2 votes, one that works just as it does now under fptp, and another where you pick a candidate from a much larger pool that can cover your whole state.
Multi member districts are called proportional systems because the way the legislature ends up looking is proportional to the way people voted, and people get to be represented by the party/candidate that they genuinely want to vote for (up to certain limits, I.e 95% of people will get such representation). Many countries use proportional systems, including the ones that have the best governance structures, such as Scandinavian countries. Proportional representation is part of the reason why these countries do so well.
So I think your starting point is all wrong. The best way to do elections in a representative democracy is not through single member voting, its through multi member. If you cant do multi member ridings in America, then your question should be different and specify America.
P.S. STV is not actually like instant runoff. STV is a type of ranked ballot that also includes multi member ridings and is thus proportional. Its a great system, works very well for Ireland. >


P.S. STV is not actually like instant runoff. STV is a type of ranked ballot that also includes multi member ridings and is thus proportional. Its a great system, works very well for Ireland.

Glad someone else pointed this out. I've always found Ireland's implementation of STV to be my favourite form of proportional representation, since every person who gets elected is directly elected by the people who they will be representing (no party lists or members without their own ridings). >

The main problem with RCV is that it still mostly has the same flaw as standard plurality voting where a third-party candidate can split the vote causing the candidate who a majority of voters prefer to be eliminated and a fringe candidate that the vast majority of voters vote against ends up winning.
​
Here is an example election with 4 candidates, The columns correspond to the percentage of voters who selected that candidate as their nth choice/rank. (For columns that add to less than 100%, the corresponding voters left that rank blank.)
​
|Candidate/Rank|1st|2nd|3rd|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Alice|27%|6%|8%|
|Bob|26%|5%|12%|
|Charlie|24%|8%|10%|
|Debora|23%|70%|1%|
​
In traditional voting, Alice wins with an extremely slim plurality of 27% of the vote. Under RCV, Debora (Who 93% of voters selected as either their 1st or 2nd choice) is eliminated instantly in the first 'round' , and the votes are transferred to the 2nd choice selections. Bob is eliminated next, and Charlie ends up winning despite the majority (58%) of voters voting AGAINST him. >

I'll actually give a !delta for this (not OP). I had never seen a simple, applied example of how RCV might result in a "consensus candidate" losing so easily, like this. Thanks for sharing.
As a follow-up, I'm curious if r/BrasilianEngineer believes that RCV is still superior to FPTP, all things considered? (Regardless of whether RCV is "the best"). >

IMO, RCV has the distinction of being not quite as bad as FPTP, thus making it better than the status quo. However, if we are actually going to go through the effort of changing election systems, I'd strongly prefer that we actually pick one that generally solves the problem, not one that makes the problem not quite as bad.
I'm not sure what system would work best - If you dive into the rabbit hole, a proper Condorcet system tends to be much more complicated to implement thus potentially disenfranchising anyone who isn't smart enough or willing enough to put in the effort to understand how to vote, so a compromise system is probably required. I think there are better compromise systems than RCV. >

Approval voting seems to me the obvious choice. It's simple and it has a lot of nice properties. I could also be convinced that range voting was good, if someone could explain to me a situation in which I'd ever want to give a candidate anything other than the maximum or minimum rating, thus boiling it down to "approval voting with extra steps".
If someone could convince me that range voting is meaningful, I like STAR quite a lot, but I fear it's too complicated to explain to the public, and would result in lots of time wasted on accusations of malfeasance from people whose candidate lost in a completely fair way that they don't understand.
That said, if there was a ballot measure in my state to switch to pretty much any of the well-regarded alternatives to FPTP, I'd vote for it even if it wasn't my favorite option. >

Approval voting definitely has my vote (heh) for a transition/compromise method, but score voting between say 1-5 is intuitive for voters who wish to express a range of desired outcomes between their most preferred choices, less-preferred but still palatable choices, barely acceptable choices, and unacceptable choices.
Even in the worst case scenario, STAR and score voting still do as well as approval voting without penalizing those voters who do choose to vote honestly, and in general more expressive voting tends to lead to more optimal utilitarian outcomes. Most people are also already familiar with the concept of rated/score/range voting in everyday life from Amazon ratings, Uber, Yelp and the like.
Given that approval voting can more or less use the same existing ballots AND eliminate the need for party primaries, I do think the energy for voting reform would be much better directed to approval voting or almost anything other than RCV/IRV. It's ironic that the system with the most visibility happens to be the worst of the alternatives. >

Can you explain how I would ever want to vote anything other than 1 (for unacceptable candidates) or 5 (for acceptable candidates) under score voting? Voting 3 for a candidate I only kinda like risks contributing to them scoring below my most hated candidate. >

I'm personally not a fan on anything that has an automatic runoff where candidates get eliminated after the 1st round. That elimination inherently allows for a spoiled election where you have a near 3-way tie but the 3rd place person with 30% (and the other 2 have 35%) get eliminated even though they might have 90% of the 2nd round votes.
Essentially, having the automatic runoff robs people of their second round vote if they ranked somebody 2nd that gets eliminated right away. There is just no good reason to do it when you can just move directly to the 2nd round of scoring without any eliminations.
And, approval voting doesn't require any of those extra step at all. No eliminations, no automatic runoff. You just add up all the votes and whoever has the most wins.
I think the biggest upset you get with approval is if two candidates both garner large support with 60%+ in a near tie maybe the one that loses would have been more people's first pick. But, the person that wins is still the one with the most overall support from the most people. There is no possibility for a 90% second choice candidate loses because they didn't get enough 1st rank picks. >


Essentially, having the automatic runoff robs people of their second round vote if they ranked somebody 2nd that gets eliminated right away. There is just no good reason to do it when you can just move directly to the 2nd round of scoring without any eliminations.

Right, this is the biggest flaw of RCV/IRV but doesn't apply to STAR voting, precisely because STAR isn't a ranked voting method, it's rated voting. There are no intermediate elimination rounds, you just add up all the votes and then, between the two highest scoring candidates, select the one preferred on more ballots.
Additionally, STAR's runoff, although not making it a Condorcet method, is also far more likely (and virtually always does irl) to elect the Condorcet winner than either approval or score voting alone, as STAR meets the Condorcet loser criterion, i.e. any candidate who would lose a head-to-head matchup between themself and any other candidate is guaranteed not to win.
Unfortunately approval voting does not guarantee the above. >

Dem candidate get 45 5 Star, 10 4 star, and 45 0 star.
Rep gets the same vote spread
Independent get 10 5 Star, 90 4 star.
In Star voting the independent would get eliminated right off the bat, and it's completely meaningless that they captured 90 4 Star votes.
There is nothing that could convince me that you can say that the independent would be absolutely guaranteed to lose if running head to head against either of the other two candidates.
If anything, I think the independent would be heavily favored to win because those people already ranked one of the other candidates a 0.
At best, an elimination should only occur after the second round of point tallying, but even then I don't see the advantage of adding that complexity. >

RCV still excludes \~49% of all voters' opinions from the process. It's better than first past the post, and better than runoffs, but at the end of the day, pure majority rule elections silence the minority party in any given district. It retains the incentive to gerrymander borders to create safe seats and disenfranchise your opposition.
I'm currently not sold on this idea, but I think a better solution might be the adoption of large multi-seat "districts" that use party list voting. (The US is conveniently already set up for this, being segmented into 50 states, DC, and five populated territories.) 
Party list voting guarantees proportional representation, excluding only a small fraction of votes. If my math is right, in a X seat district all but 1/(X+1) percent of voters would have a representative of their choice. So Wyoming would have 49.9% of voters unrepresentative, same as before (1/(1+1)), and California would have all but 1.9% represented (1/(52+1)). 
It's tempting to think that this would reinforce the party system that many see as a plague on the US, but alongside empowering parties, it would demolish the two party system. Because a third party candidate wouldn't be competing in an isolated district, they'd be free to gather support statewide and amalgamate local groups into a statewide effort. In California, you'd only need about 2% of the vote to get elected to the house! "Third" (and fourth, and fifth...) parties would proliferate. >

you can still gerrymander even with 4 members per district, just the result of it will be diminished. if you're making multimember district, you can severely reduce gerrymandering at the same time by combining districts. any state with 5 or fewer districts now will form 1 new district. states with more districts will be split into sub-regions with 3-5 members districts (maybe with a clearly defined rule like that it has to follow county border). >

Ranked voting can actually increase the disproportionality of our elections. Fair Vote Canada has published results of simulations they based on a ranked voting system and it showed the liberal party could get 50-60 % of seats with around 35-40 % of the vote.
What happens is that the second and third votes tend to be the most center parties and it makes center parties have disproportionate representation from their vote share.
In my opinion, the best system is a mixed member proportional system where you have a share of seats that are locally allocated through FPTP, Ranked Voting or Single Transferable Vote and a share of votes that are allocated to compensate between the difference of the vote share of each party and their share of seats. 
Its quite simple : you get 10% of votes, 10 % of seats; you get 20% of votes, 20 % of seats; you get 30% of votes, 30 % of seats; you get 40% of votes, 40 % of seats, etc.
The people who fill the compensation seats can be choosen from open lists that voters can vote in at the ballot box and they can be distributed to local regions like in Germany.
Some of the best proportional systems are those of Germany, Denmark and New Zealand.
In conclusion, proportional representation is mathematically more representative and delivers results as such, proportional also helps widen the Overton window even more.
Also, it helps to guarantee every vote counts because it takes into account of every voter in the country.
However, proportional only works when selecting multiple options. Ranked voting is still good for a single multi-option decision like in a referendum.

Fifth, it helps prevent "gaming" the system by strategically voting for a candidate you THINK will win instead of whom you desire.

You can actually still game ranked voting. If you look up and compare it with approval voting, you'll see a mathematical example of strategic voting under ranked voting.
That's the short version, if you want more details, feel free to ask. >

Instant runoff voting and single transferable vote do not ensure the election of a Condorcet winner: a candidate who would win election against all other candidates in the race. This makes these systems inferior to Condorcet voting methods (e.g. the Schulze method) at selecting candidates who actually represent the preferences of the voters. >

What is a Condorcet voting method?  What is the Schulze method? >

The oversimplified TLDR is that a Condorcet winner is a candidate that is guaranteed to win a 1v1 rematch against any of the other candidates. A non Condorcet winner would be the candidate who wins a plurality in a 3+ way race but would not win every rematch vs single candidates. 
For an example of a non-Condorcet winner, consider a Donald Trump vs George Washington vs Abraham Lincon election where Washington and Lincon evenly split 66% of the vote and Trump gets the remaining 34% of the vote thus wining, but if either Lincoln or Washington had dropped out, the other candidate would have won with 66% of the vote.
A Condorcet voting method is one that guarantees that only a Condorcet winner can win. (Edit: Assuming that a Condorcet winner exists) >

What's the actual voting method? If there's no easy way to explain to the public how the voting actually works then I think that's a big problem. >


What's the actual voting method?

It isn't a single voting method. It is a type or category of voting method. The wikipedia article lists around a dozen different methods that would fall under the category of 'Condorcet voting method' >

But which one would you suggest? Is there any that are actually simple enough to explain that most people could understand it? >

Single winner RCV basically accomplishes noþing in terms of actually givin' representation to would be þird party voters, it just gives ðem a pat on ðe back for nominally supportin' ðeir actual preferred candidate before ðey get counted as a voter of whichever major party ðey are closer to.
A better system would be Multi-Winner STAR, in my opinion it better ensures ðe slate of folks elected wiðin a given election reflects ðe political spread of ðe folks electin' ðem wiðout goin' into a strict Proportional Representation system.  Plus ðe automatic runoff rounds to actually seat candidates gives voters ðe most power for expression of ðeir whole view of ðe slate of candidates. >

I read this with a THICK Chicago accent, and I just want you to know that. >

Y'know I've gotten a wide range, folks are also sayin' it reads Appalachian or Deep Souþ to'em >

100% how it sounds in  my head >

There are lots of different ways to implement RCV, so applying the label generally can be a bit dubious, so while I’ll apply it loosely for simplicity, let’s all take everything with a grain of salt, so as not to argue past one another. 
With that disclaimer out of the way, there are a couple of problems/hurdles I can think of with RCV: election integrity/confidence, dilution of campaign messaging signal, and general complication. 
The complication part is easy to unpack. The more complicated the process is, the easier it is for people to mess it up. “Pick A or B” is easier than “put your first choice here from among A through G, then here you may but are not required to put a second choice, then here you may but are not required to put a third choice, but may only do so if you provided a second choice in the previous space.”  It really isn’t that hard, but people still mess up a small percentage of the time with the “A vs B” option, so RCV would only make this worse. Compound that with general confusion of how the process works(and the game theory behind it) and boneheaded candidate messaging(like Palin’s campaign telling her voters not to put down a second choice at all) as well as false-flag or controlled-opposition messaging of the same kind. 
The dilution effect comes down to the proportional effectiveness of repeated messaging in advertising. Imagine there are 10 different burger joints in town, and you hear ads for each one about twice on average. Say there are only two fried chicken joints in town, and you hear ads for each one 10 times. How likely are you to choose a burger over fried chicken? Now imagine 7 of the burger joints are Whata-Burger, and you see 14 ads for them. Now how likely are you to get a burger?  Primaries allow parties to settle who their candidate will be well ahead of time, so they can send out consistent messaging ahead of the election. If instead, Republicans are fielding two candidates in a given election while Democrats have five, the Republicans will have the advantage of consistent, repeated messaging. 
As for integrity/confidence, RCV is necessarily more dubious. Between just two candidates in a normal election, we have regular polling, poll-watchers counting total voters, exit polls, voter registration records, and primary participation rates all informing our expectations, and any deviation from the expected would be more noticeable. If a district that is D +7, has a few more registered Democrats than Republicans, and had slightly elevated primary participation on the Dem side with normal Rep participation, and election day exit polls also slightly favoring Dems reported that 70% of the vote went to Republicans(and the election official running everything is a Republican), there would be immediate outrage and demand for an investigation. If, however, they had RCV and the district reported that 52% of the first choices were for a Democrat, but that 20% of the secondary votes of the lesser Dem were for the moderate Republican, while only 6% of the lesser Republican’s secondary votes went to the stronger Democrat, people wouldn’t be similarly outraged, even though it could be a fabrication. How would we know without an investigation(or even with one, in some cases)?  And without the outrage, there would be no investigation. The RCV mechanism obfuscates the general process. That increases the margin for error, leaving room for doubt, which in turn saps voter confidence. 
Personally, I think we should still try and implement RCV in some form. We could possibly hold RCV jungle(open) primaries, having only the top 2 candidates appear on the ballot in the general election, regardless of party affiliation(still allowing for write-ins).  Perhaps we could even have a clause in the election laws stating that whoever was the last to be eliminated in the primary(third best choice overall) would automatically replace either of the two main candidates in the event they die or are otherwise unable to take office. This method would still allow for the RCV effect of pulling toward the moderate center, while not diluting campaign messaging(and allowing parties to direct their efforts more in contested areas - no sense dropping a billion dollars into a district with two candidates from the same party).  This method would also have the effect of quashing primary-meddling(like Dems donating tons of money to far-right Republican primary campaigns in purple districts, or people lying about party affiliation on voter registration to vote in the other party’s primary). >

I would go further and say it's the ONLY way to conduct elections if you want the democracy to be healthy and functioning.   Any other system will eventually end up with some serious problems. >

You know what !Delta
I actually like this better, thank you >

You're welcome :)) >

Definitely better than plurality winners, runoffs, and multi-party coalition attempts. >

Ranked pairs 

Ranked pairs (sometimes abbreviated "RP") or the Tideman method is an electoral system developed in 1987 by Nicolaus Tideman that selects a single winner using votes that express preferences. The ranked-pairs procedure can also be used to create a sorted list of winners. If there is a candidate who is preferred over the other candidates, when compared in turn with each of the others, the ranked-pairs procedure guarantees that candidate will win. Because of this property, the ranked-pairs procedure complies with the Condorcet winner criterion (and is a Condorcet method).

STAR voting 

STAR voting is an electoral system for single-seat elections. Variations also exist for multi-winner and proportional representation elections. The name (an allusion to star ratings) stands for "Score then Automatic Runoff", referring to the fact that this system is a combination of score voting, to pick two finalists with the highest total scores, followed by a "virtual runoff" in which the finalist who is preferred on more ballots wins. It is a type of cardinal voting electoral system.

^([ )^(F.A.Q)^( | )^(Opt Out)^( | )^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)^( | )^(GitHub)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5) >

You have provided good reasons in support of ranked choice voting, and I think we should gradually implement it everywhere.  However, I believe that it is too confusing and demanding for voters when there are more than 5 candidates.  (Imagine how difficult it would be to rank 15 or more candidates!)  And so, I would recommend one or two preliminary rounds where people just vote for their one most-favored candidate and then the highest vote getters move to the next round until you have just 5 candidates in the final round.  People can easily handle 5 in ranked choice voting in the final round.
I think there is another method which would be even better than ranked choice voting, and I call it "rated choice voting."  In this method, each voter would rate each candidate on a ten-point scale, with 0 = "not desired to occupy the office" and 10 = "very desired to occupy the office."  (A similar scale might be 0 = "unqualified for the office" to 10 = "very qualified for the office.")  This is easier than ranked-choice voting and could be used with any number of candidates.  I think it provides the most information regarding the voter's differentiation of candidates.
So, let's implement ranked-choice voting first, use it for a decade, and then implement rated-choice voting. >

It's more important that we switch to a parliamentary system than it is that we change how we elect one of two viable parties >

Parliamentary system isn't much better. A Canadian Ptime Minister's party hasn't received 50% of the popular vote since 1984, and haven't even got to 40% since 2004. And if you think that doesn't matter since coalition building leads to majority rule. Liberals won a majority government in 2015 with 39% of the popular vote.
Plus there is the complete lack of democratic primaries in a parliamentary system. >

I'm placing the emphasis on the diversity of represented views in government, and for that parliament is a better system. I am quite far to the left politically and I think the only way to see representation in Congress would be on a system like that