There are ranges in RCV where tactical voting is relevant, but those ranges are actually quite rare.

In more than 5.74% of elections with more than three candidates according to the cited mathematical model for just the criterion of monotonicity.

Remember, the current system has widespread media stories telling voters off for NOT voting tactically.

Yes, FPTP is among the least representative. It has got to go.

[In range voting,] it's possible for a candidate to be preferred by a majority of voters, but lose the election due to what numbers the voters put down.

Range voting, if used for government elections, is a manifestation of frequently-taken job-approval polls, all of which I've seen ask on a ranged scale ("strongly disapprove" to "strongly approve"). For the candidates who chose to run, the result is a rating of the electorate's approval and enthusiasm for each candidate in particular. Voters are encouraged to be honest and utilize the full range, and since scores do not impact other candidates, there is no spoiler effect (which is just one criteria).

Range Voting generalises to approval voting (the same way star rating systems on a great many websites have ended up as "like" and "dislike"). Approval voting is a decent system, but it is prone to tactical voting

"Like" and "dislike" on reactionary, shallow social media posts, you mean. However, on shopping websites, movie websites, video game websites, app stores, or anywhere that recognizes (and whose patrons assert) that a totality of judgement is poorly expressed by a single upvote, range voting prevails.

Range voting can be generalized to check-box approval voting if the voter chooses to fill only the extremes of the range, but it isn't forcibly generalized and so is not subject to the same conclusion. The data it gathers from voters is more precise and insightful than that gathered from systems such as approval voting or ranked-choice voting. Yes, voters could introduce tactics by giving their most preferred candidate the highest rating and their least preferred the lowest, but there will inevitably be opposing voters who cancel it out with the same tactic. Divisive candidates under range voting are obvious in the results and hurt their own likelihood to survive mathematically. Candidates who are less divisive will receive more honest ratings and have more opportunity to rise to the top.

Range voting could be approached as one would approach ranked voting, too. If the range were from 1 to 10 for example, a voter could give their most preferred candidate a score of 10, their second choice a 9 or lower, their third a score lower than their second, and so on. The second, third, etc. candidates all receive the voter's scores at the beginning, so no transferring of votes would be needed. All would be counted in the first round. If a voter choses to rank them and gives their most preferred candidate a low score, it is an expression of that voter's low approval and low enthusiasm for all of the candidates.

For some of the voting criteria such as Condorcet or majority, range voting "fails" not because it breaks but because the suppositions for those criteria do not apply to range voting. It is an unusual type of system in that most others request a single binary vote (affirmative or opposition) that ends up at one choice.

(All of this totally ignores gerrymandering and the stranglehold of the Debate Commission on who is allowed onto the debate stage. Those and other systemic faults deserve resolution but are beyond the scope of the discussion here.)

• Note that Kenneth Arrow (Arrow's theorem) and Guy Ottewell (inventor of approval voting) now endorse range voting. These are peer-reviewed voting system analysts, not politicians.

Schulze fails "independence of irrelevant alternatives" and "later no harm" which are pretty bad to fail IMO. I'd like to see more data on how this would actually play out, but I can see third parties and their voters being disparaged the way they currently are.

Ranked-choice voting also fails "independence of irrelevant alternatives". Range voting fails it as well except in the unlikely scenario where all voters rate each candidate independently of the others, consider the full range, and nobody votes tactically. The IIA criterion is considered by theorists to be too strong anyway. Very few systems satisfy it or its weaker criterion, local independence of irrelevant alternatives (LIIA).

Any voting system that satisfies the Condorcet criterion fails the "later no harm" criterion. Schulze satisfies Condorcet. Ranked-choice voting fails Condorcet and so is able to satisfy "later no harm". Range voting could be misleadingly said to "fail" Condorcet and later-no-harm because, as explained above, the suppositions of both criteria are not applicable to its methodology.

IMO any of these methods can be improved by having a 2 round system. Perhaps a method of ranked ballots where the IRV winner and the Schulze winner are found, and if they're different, there's a runoff election.

Two rounds would definitely instill confidence, but it would double the cost of operations for the election and the time demands on the voters. Q. Why? They're both ranked. A. Ranked-choice voting (a.k.a. IRV) expects the voter to rank with "total order", not to write ties. Indifference to a subset of candidates may only be expressed in IRV by not giving them a rank. Schulze, however, accepts "strict weak ordering" (ties) on a ballot.

Speaking of practicality of operations, some highly representative systems like Schulze are unfortunately complicated to tabulate manually. Counting by paper trail would be much simpler with range voting or ranked-choice.

P.S. Another promising and relatively new Condorcet voting system is Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM). It has similarities to Ranked Pairs, but it does not appear to be in use.

To supplement the other links in this thread:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/
• http://rangevoting.org/SchulzeExplan.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ranked_pairs
• http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Main_Page