it would be a shame to spend our effort squabbling over which alternative, than giving support to the one that has the most momentum and chance of succeeding now
I think the bigger shame would be to spend so much effort promoting RCV, only to have people become jaded and disillusioned with voting method reform in general when they realize RCVs many glaring problems.
The biggest problem with RCV IMO is that it looks like it eliminates the spoiler effect, but it really only eliminates it in simple cases where the third-party candidates are not competitive. This suddenly becomes very obvious and painful in cases like Burlington, 2009 or Alaska, 2022 where voters were told "RCV is great because you can vote honestly", only to realize post-election that this was entirely false, and that they threw away their votes and let the election go to a candidate they despise.
Trust is extremely important in political movements, and very easy to lose. I fear RCV is going to poison the well for any FPTP alternatives for a long time to come.
I think the bigger shame would be to spend so much effort promoting RCV, only to have people become jaded and disillusioned with voting method reform in general when they realize RCVs many glaring problems.
The biggest problem with RCV IMO is that it looks like it eliminates the spoiler effect, but it really only eliminates it in simple cases where the third-party candidates are not competitive. This suddenly becomes very obvious and painful in cases like Burlington, 2009 or Alaska, 2022 where voters were told "RCV is great because you can vote honestly", only to realize post-election that this was entirely false, and that they threw away their votes and let the election go to a candidate they despise.
Trust is extremely important in political movements, and very easy to lose. I fear RCV is going to poison the well for any FPTP alternatives for a long time to come.