Is Hare (aka IRV and RCV) Better But Not Best?

The Hare voting system for single-winner elections—better known currently as ranked-choice voting (RCV) and earlier as instant-runoff voting (IRV)—has recently experienced sharply increased adoptions and impact in the U.S. Therefore, a detailed examination of its favorable and unfavorable features is necessary. Further, we compare Hare against a different type of ranked-choice voting—Condorcet systems. Advocates of Hare rightly point out that it avoids some serious defects of plurality voting (though so do Condorcet systems). Not afflicting Condorcet systems are many flaws of Hare, including possible failure to elect Condorcet winners; lack of summability; inability to rank candidates at the bottom, below unused ranks; obscuring the strength of a dropped candidate; and dubious recount provisions. We note some unnatural restrictions imposed by actual or proposed rules governing Hare: maximums on how many candidates may be ranked, prevention of recount requests from potential winners, and disregard of skipped intermediate rankings—limitations that may arise from efforts to overcome inherent Hare complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]