[thefaux]

I hear you and this is such a lazy argument against IRV. Do they really lack the imagination to understand why this is a feature, not a bug in IRV?

IRV, though imperfect, is so clearly superior to one candidate voting if the goal is a responsive democracy. Unfortunately, there are many people who don't want that. IRV closes a loophole for extreme candidates (I have a strong suspicion that the 2016 djt campaign would have been thwarted by IRV had the gop primary used it). It also allows partially aligned challengers to pressure incumbents without dividing the electorate. This would likely be better for the challenger and the incumbent. Consider this past election where Jill Stein was demonized as a spoiler, which she potentially was, but would not have been in ranked choice. I bet there are a lot of voters who would have rather voted for Jill Stein but instead cast their vote for a candidate whom they thought could win (including candidates who received what should have been Jill Stein votes and thus lost important information about what matters to their voters). This is bad for everyone except those who don't believe in responsive democracy and largely rewards career politicians, political consultants and lobbyists.