[dragonwriter]

> Doesn't going paper-only make it difficult to switch to alternative voting systems like RCV

It makes IRV (“RCV” is an annoying name designed specifically to obscure other ranked-choice methods) impractical, particularly for large electorates, if you want to avoid machine tallying, but that's a reason not to use IRV, not a reason to avoid paper ballots and manual tabulation.

A simply tallyable ranked choice method like Bucklin is amenable to manual tabulation. (And, compared to IRV, getting rid of loser elimination reduces the degree to which IRV produces undesirable results and makes the system easier to understand.)