>

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").
/u/PM_Me_Thicc_Puppies (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
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.