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Comment by munk-a | Hacker News Reader

Ranked voting actually does enable third party candidate wins (assuming they can garner sufficient public support) with ranked choice voting the stigma of voting third party is removed and people can safely vote primarily for who they want instead of primarily voting strategically.

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This is false. See the game theory explained by Andy Jennings, who did his math PhD thesis on voting methods and co-founded the Center for Election Science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ

Here's a more technical explanation by Warren Smith, a Princeton math PhD whose work was the centerpiece of the book "Gaming the Vote".

http://scorevoting.net/TarrIrv.html

Finally, see real world data from a century of IRV in Australia.

http://scorevoting.net/AustralianPol

Where does it work?

Australia has single-representative voting districts with instant-runoff voting, and they seem to have something that looks to me being close to a two-party system in practice. I admit, I didn't browse though all possible countries, so perhaps you know a better example?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Aust...

agree - voting system is only 1/2 of the pie - the other piece being the actual governmental structure.. when parties not candidates are voted for, and coalitions have to be formed, the need to heavily fund 'magical individuals' is less, and the need to compromise between parties and meet people directly on their own terms increases..

If you actually work through the game theory, you find that single-winner instant-runoff voting is nearly as vulnerable to Duverger’s Law of two-party domination as plurality voting.

https://www.electionscience.org/voting-methods/runoff-electi...

There are much better single-winner systems available: see approval voting, score voting, and Condorcet voting. But if you want a legislature with proportional representation, you really need a system with multi-representative districts.

Nailed it.

As the sibling comment from anderkaseorg says, IRV is one of the worst single-winner voting systems that isn't plurality voting.

Third parties would greatly benefit from range-voting[1]. I used to favor Condorcet voting methods as an improvement over plurality, but now I favor range-voting. Mostly for how much more straightforward the vote outcomes are, and the simplicity of explaining it. The no-show paradox inherent in Condorcet systems also bothers me[2].

There is a good summary of the properties of different voting systems on wikipedia[3].

[1] https://www.rangevoting.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_criterion

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...

> with ranked choice voting the stigma of voting third party is removed

That is a myth. Instant Runoff Voting does not eliminate the lesser evil (spoiler) problem. See this explained by a math PhD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ

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