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Approval voting should be a non-starter. Voting for as many as you want? What an opportunity for mischief.

But RCV is not fair, in my opinion. The appeal of RCV is that eventually, a candidate gets at least a simple majority of votes, and so people don't feel as disenfranchised. The problem I see is that only the votes of the loser candidate gets redistributed. The loser candidates tend to be those with fringe ideas, and they lose for good reason. In my opinion, the public might be well-served if votes from supporters of these candidates be taken out of the system, period. But instead, RCV allows their second choice candidate to receive their vote (if still in the game), etc. But for everyone else, nothing changes. This is not fair, as many people might vote differently if they knew their candidate wasn't winning.

I would propose that EVERYONE be allowed to record two votes. The first vote is for your preferred candidate. The second vote is who you would support IF YOU KNEW THAT YOUR FIRST CHOICE WAS NOT THE WINNER and there was a need for another recalculation round. So for elections where a party is split amongst two or more candidates, you might think twice about voting for the less popular candidate of your party if you KNEW it would harmfully split the party's chances, as in Alaska. So when there is a need for a runoff, the losing candidate will still get removed, but everyone else (except those who supported the leading candidate) would be able to cast their alternate votes if their first choice wasn't the winner, and not just give this special opportunity only to the losing candidate voters.

It's simple. I would cast my vote. If my candidate is winning but there is a need for a runoff, my vote remains the same. But if my candidate is not the leaderboard winner, knowing this I might vote for someone else. If my candidate(s) is out, so am I, because if my candidates can't find enough votes to remain in the game, then both of us are too fringe, and best we stay out. For the rest, the computer recalculates the remaining votes.

Perhaps this should be called Preferred Choice Voting. Or we could just keep it simple and if there is open voting, let the winner take all. But no Ranked Choice, please.

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