Ranked-choice voting

In this election, there is a ballot initiative in maine which would create a "ranked-choice voting" (RCV) system there. This might be a better way of voting.

Here is a description of how it would work (from NewBostonPost):

If one candidate wins a majority of first-place votes, she is declared the winner. However, if no one candidate gets a majority of first-place votes, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, and his votes are redistributed to the other candidates based on who those voters chose as their second choice. This process continues until one candidate has a majority of votes and is declared the winner.

This is clearly a more friendly system for third party candidates.

Let's consider the possibilities from an unusually tight state, Utah. Based on the average of the latest polls from RealClearPolitics, here is roughly how the presidential candidates are expected to finish:

Trump - 37.8%
Clinton - 26.5%
McMullin - 25.8%
Johnson - 3.5%
Stein - 1.3%
Other - 5.1%  

Let's say the "other" candidates get removed from the "first" choice, and apportioned equally between all the candidates as a second choice (with 0.1% removed as not having selected a second choice). That would make it:

Trump - 38.8%
Clinton - 27.5%
McMullin - 26.8%
Johnson - 4.5%
Stein - 2.3%

Next, Jill Stein gets removed. Since her voters likely second and third choices would be between Hillary Clinton and Gary Johnson with another 0.1% "no choice", I will apportion them there, putting us at this result:

Trump - 38.8%
Clinton - 28.6%
McMullin - 26.8%
Johnson - 5.6% 

Next, Gary Johnson gets removed. His likely second, third, and fourth choices are likely to be concentrated between Donald Trump and Evan McMullin, putting the race at:

Trump - 41.6%
Clinton - 28.6%
McMullin - 29.6% 

Finally, this leaves Clinton as the next to be dropped. If her voters go the political binary route, they could put Trump in the White House if they pick Trump as their second/third/fourth/fifth choice. On the other hand, if they overwhelmingly chose McMullin with those secondary choices, they could deny the state to Trump.

The beauty of RCV is that it gets to the heart of what the voters really want, without allowing a bare plurality of voters to decide who wins. Maybe people won't agree on the first choice, especially in a packed field, but they might be able to find agreement somewhere else.

This represents the democratic ideal far better than our current "two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner". Let's give the entire barnyard a vote by allowing second choices.