[mindslight]

Approval voting is just a different flavor of the same popular candidate tyranny. We need to be able to express support for non-duopoly candidates over the duopoly ones, and not continue to be held hostage fully supporting mainstream party #1 by the threat of mainstream party #2.

Unfortunately this devolves into geeking out over voting systems. Despite having the most popular support, Instant Runoff Voting is also a hot mess with its surprising nonintuitive outcomes. The way I see it, RCV/Condorcet is the way to go, regardless of the criticism that it allows for ties - it's criteria is straightforward and what most people would consider fair. Solve the ties with a tiebreaker IRV round (same input data type) or just a second election since they're going to be really rare with any significant population (how many times do we have ties with plurality?)