Yes, yes it would.

The way ranked choice works is that everyone’s first rank is tabulated.

If a candidate gets the majority vote in the first choices they win outright.

If not, the candidates with the fewest first choice is eliminated, and those that voted for them, they move on to their second choice picks.

Votes are now recounted. If no one still has a clear majority, the person with the lowest votes is again eliminated, with their voter’s votes going to the next rank in choosing.

You go through that until someone gets a majority.

Other similar systems include STAR voting, Score Voting, and Approval Voting.

Yes, anything other than first past the post would help. Ranked choice, instant runoff, however you want to define it.

It would allow people to vote for a 3rd party without disenfranchising themselves.

Until then...

Approval voting would help, but neither party will ever vote in favor of it.

Yes, though it’s not a magic bullet.

Here’s a video that compares Plurality/FPTP (our current system), Ranked choice, and approval voting, and is up-front about the limitations of each method.

Here’s a link with a lot more information on different voting methods. STAR voting is the method highlighted here as the best, but Score voting and Approval are also pretty good. IRV/Ranked Choice doesn’t perform quite as well, but is at least still better than FPTP.

A new voting system that’s any better than our current system brings us closer to a political landscape where viable candidates who choose not to drop out early aren’t working against their interests, and voters are less incentivized to vote strategically. And even if IRV is only marginally better than FPTP, its popularity gives exposure to the idea that alternative voting systems are worth looking into.

For the time being, it would effectively move fringe-party votes to the nearest major party - ensuring that e.g. Trump doesnt win if the majority of people had Harris or some third party candidate ranked above Trump.

Current “third” parties have a long way to go before they would end up in the winning slot - but, presuming the elimination rounds’ stats are published and not just the final winner, we could better gauge the support for them since voters could show preference for them on the ballot without “wasting their vote”.

After a while, evidence of sustained support may snowball, or a particularly compelling candidate may be ranked above a “major” party candidate on a majority of ballots - leading to a win.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

!rcv@ponder.cat

It's on the ballot statewide in six states so far, and it's already in action in a bunch of places. Almost everybody who isn't a malicious establishment politician likes it wherever it gets tried. Read the sticky post to learn more.

It depends how you look at it.

Ranked Choice is not going to make a third party viable at the presidential level. Simply because the other two parties have orders of magnitude more funding to campaign and make sure people know and "like" their candidates. And, depending on the implementation of ranked choice, it may still result in splitting the vote.

At the congressional representative level? Ranked choice has a lot of benefits there. But that is also the level where third party candidates are still viable under the current model.

The reality is that most of the things people want out of ranked choice we already have out of the primary system. Wide range of candidates run in the primary on each side. Primaries exist to figure out who The People like and to let the party down select. Done right, you have what would otherwise have been "third party" candidates who suddenly have a LOT of influence within the party (see: Bernie Sanders in 2020... less so in 2016) because they get a lot of influence on the platform in exchange for supporting the candidate who has the majority of the vote and the party backing.

The key is that people need to understand they are still compromising to get some of what they want AND to engage with their local (and even national) parties to make sure their voices are heard.

It would reduce the problem significantly. If we had RCV back in 1992 I can see most of Ross Periot's votes going to Bush senior as their 2nd or 3rd choice, winning him re-election.

Likewise I can see a lot of Greens votes in 2016 going to Clinton, with that being enough to give her the margin needed to win in the Electoral College.

Ranked voting still isn't perfect in this regard, see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting#Defeat-dropping_Condorcet

No one party will equally draw from both Democrats and Republicans. Look at the implosion of "No Labels".

What needs to happen is for the progressives to abandon the Democrats and make their own party, and for the rational Republicans who have been leaving the Republican party since 2010 to form their own conservative party.

So from left to right you'd have:

Progressives---Corporate Democrats-Former Republicans---MAGA Republicans

🌍👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

Loser.

I'm sure both of the people voting for that party in your area will be very happy. So will Trump.