@travisfw for a variety of reasons, I don’t think ranked-choice / instant-runoff voting is a great system. i prefer it to the horrible status quo of plurality voting, of course, but i think it has a lot of problems. it’ll take a separate post to explain why. 1/

@travisfw but the thing that maintains the two-party system isn’t the “binary” lack of gradations of approval, but the spoiler effect. approval voting eliminates that. there is never a penalty for expressing your support of the party you most support, in addition (if necessary) to your “approval” of a party you support less, but do not wish to spoil. 2/

@travisfw in all deterministic voting systems, there is some benefit to strategic voting. in approval voting, you still have to think about who you don’t want to spoil. in RCV, you have to think strategically when your first and second choices have similar levels of support. (you can always opt out of thinking strategically, but then your vote may have undesirable effects.) 3/

@travisfw approval voting is a simpler and more predictable game, from a voter’s perspective, and strategic voting never requires you to misstate your preferences (since you cannot rank, you are never compelled to rank an option you like less over an option you like more to avoid a bad outcome). /fin