The third rank in IRV3/AV3 is essentially only useful for turkey-raising. For instance, imagine the 2000 election with two Nader clones, Bush/Gore/Nader1/Nader2. Bush voters could vote Bush>Nader2>Nader1, and possibly eliminate Gore from the IRV3 round. (Or with honest voting, Gore could be center-squeezed; but that's a separate possibility).
Allowing equal rankings and/or having only one runoff round (IRV3/AV2) would help with other problems, but they would if anything make the turkey-raising problem worse. Jameson
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