Ah, thanks for finding the facts. So the first election had a surprise result. It worked exactly as designed, and either people didn’t understand that could happen or they’ve since been convinced it was contrary to what they wanted.

Given the whole goal of RCV is that outcomes are satisfying to the largest number of people you’d think this result wouldn’t have had a backlash like what we’ve seen.

I’d bet the losing party was behind the measure, and I’m somewhat happy to see it fail. I hope that means the majority of people were in fact satisfied.

Some jurisdictions using FPTP may do a runoff if there’s no winner with a 50% mandate, but most do not. Split votes such as 45/40/15 with 45% declared the winner can and do happen.

If I remember correctly one of the first major elections using RCV resulted in the person who overall got the most first choice picks losing the person who overall get the most second and third choice pics. So it worked as designed in that the winner was the person with over 50% of the vote, but it really upset all the people who had supported the person who would have won under the previous first past the post system.

Not since SCOTUS gutted the voting rights act.