I kinda like ranked choice, but there are downsides to it. It’s more complicated to count votes but that’s manageable. But there is something to be said for having vote counting be simple enough that there is no doubt about the winner.

Many people may have difficulty with thinking in any kind of abstract way. Yeah it seems relatively trivial just to number candidates from most favoured to least favoured, but a lot of people will struggle with this.

A system like France’s run-off system for president seems ideal to me. It’s simple and having some time between the first vote and the second vote to discuss and debate (and just think about) which of the final two candidates is the best is valuable. No need for abstract thought and counting the votes is simple and less likely to be disputed (though that can happen even in a simple system a la Trump).

But it’s expensive to have two rounds of voting for every election on every level. So ranked choice works well enough when having two rounds of voting isn’t feasible. I mean no system is ever going to be ideal, but gotta pick the best of the imperfect options.