Just thought people here would be interested in either confirming or learning about some of the arguments people will use in support of IRV.
-- Thanks for your input and concern. I checked out your information and understand that Condorcet and other systems of voting may have some advantages over IRV. However, given the complexity of these systems, it seems unlikely that we'll be able to achieve them right off the bat--without getting voters familiar with preferential voting of some sort first. While IRV may not be the holy grail, it is certainly better than the status quo.
Although IRV may not break the two party system, it ensures a majority winner rather than a plurality winner, clearly a good thing. When replacing traditional run offs, as in San Francisco, IRV boosts turnout and saves money. While it is pretty unlikely that IRV will lead to the actual election of 3rd party candidates, it will allow voters to show support for third party candidates without wasting their vote, and therefore eliminate the spoiler effect. Some third party folks like this, some don't -- they see the spoiler role as giving them more power. But, from the voters point of view, IRV undisputably gives them greater ability to register their true intentions (they can always still spoil if they want to by refusing to rank any candidate past the first one.
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