Ranked choice is decent, but I would prefer STAR voting, Ranked Robin Voting, or Score Voting personally. I know this is an old community and post, but I think now is the best time to start a movement to move away from FPTP.

Behold, my anti-IRV copypasta:

---

Ranked choice AKA instant runoff voting AKA the arrogantly branded "the alternative vote" is not a good thing.

---

Changing your ranking for a candidate to a higher one can hurt that candidate. Changing to a lower ranking can help that candidate. IRV fails the monotonicity criterion.

---

Changing from not voting at all to voting for your favorite candidates can hurt those candidates, causing your least favorite to win. IRV fails the participation criterion.

---

If candidate A is beating candidate B, adding some candidate C can cause B to win. IRV fails the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion. In other words, it does not eliminate the spoiler effect.

---

There are strategic incentives to vote dishonestly.

Due to the way it works, it does not and has not helped third parties.

Votes cannot be processed locally; Auditing is a nightmare.

Et cetera.

---

If you want a very good and simple single winner election, look to approval voting.

If you're interested in making that even better in some ways, look to a modification called delegable yes/no voting.

---

Enacting IRV is a way to fake meaningful voting reform, and build change fatigue, so that folks won't want to change the system yet again.

---

How can a change from not voting at all, to voting for favored candidates, hurt those candidates?

Participation Criterion Failure

Wikipedia offers a simple example of IRV violating the participation criterion, like this:

---

2 voters are unsure whether to vote. 13 voters definitely vote, as follows:

• 6 rank C, A, B
• 4 rank B, C, A
• 3 rank A, B, C

If the 2 unsure voters don't vote, then B wins.

A is eliminated first in this case, for having the fewest top-rank ballots.

---

The unsure voters both would rank A, B, C.

If they do vote, then B gets eliminated first, and C wins.

---

By voting, those unsure voters changed the winner from their second choice to their last choice, due to the elimination method which is not as rational as first appears.

---

How can raising your ranking for a candidate hurt that candidate?

Monotonicity Criterion Failure

Wikipedia offers a less simple example of IRV violating the monotonicity criterion:

---

100 voters go to the booths planning to rank as follows:

• 30 rank A, B, C
• 28 rank C, B, A
• 16 rank B, A, C
• 16 rank B, C, A
• 5 rank A, C, B
• 5 rank C, A, B

If this happens, B gets eliminated, and A wins.

---

While in line, 2 folks who planned to rank C, A, B realize they actually prefer A. They move A to the top: A, C, B.

Now C gets eliminated, and B wins.

---

By promoting A from second to first choice, those 2 voters changed the winner from A, their favorite, to B, their least favorite.