https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/31/politics/alaska-house-seat-ranked-choice-ballots/index.html
In my opinion, ranked choice voting is one of two reforms (along with public financing of campaigns) needed to break our stagnation of politicians owned by their largest donors.
In the special election for Alaska's house seat, voters used ranked choice voting, in which voters indicate their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices. (The primary was a single field, with the 4 highest vote-getters advancing to the general election. One of those 4 dropped out, leaving Palin, Begich (also Republican) and Peltola (Democrat).
After totaling the 1st choice votes, it was
Peltola 40%
Palin 31%
Begich 28%
Since nobody had > 50%, Begich was eliminated, and that 28% was assigned to those voters' second choices. If they all had picked Palin, she would have had a 60-40 victory. But instead, that 28% went 12% for Peltola and 16% for Palin, giving the final tally:
Peltola 52%
Palin 48%
In this system, Republican voters didn't have to worry about "throwing their vote away", as supporting a #3 or #4 candidate just meant your second favorite would get the vote.
It also avoided party primaries, where there's always the possibility of cross-party voting or registration switching to game the other party's primary.
The thing I like best about it is that it allows people to vote for 3rd party candidates, without it risking putting your least favorite in office.
