In principle, if no citizen who casts a vote misunderstands the voting system:
- If there is only one candidate standing (like in the most recent Delegate election), then IRV and Approval voting are functionally equivalent.
- Supposing that there is more than one candidate standing, the key functional differences between IRV and Approval would be how rankings between candidates might play out. For example, if under Approval voting I would’ve picked both Fluffy and Noodle for Delegate in the first round, under IRV I would be forced to rank between Fluffy and Noodle (or cast a ballot not listing either candidate, or consider whether to rank RON, or so on…)
(As a technical side-note: I’m not sure if it’s true that IRV would ensure that there are only two winners as candidates in the second round - as a simple mathematical example, suppose 3 candidates (excluding RON), 3 valid votes, with 1 vote cast for each candidate without listing any other candidates)
The reason I prefer Approval voting over IRV (and hence why I oppose the amendment), at least in the context of the first round of the Delegate election, is that it leaves less room for “over-strategizing” one’s vote and ensures a clear representation that the citizenry, in-principle, approves of the (at least) two candidates sent to the next round. Admittedly, I suspect that in practice, there really wouldn’t be that much of a difference between either voting system.