On Thursday, Rick linked to a DemocracySoS essay by Greg Dennis arguing that Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is categorically “superior to Condorcet Voting as a tool for political depolarization.” To support his position, Dennis offers two arguments, neither of which I find persuasive as I explain in this Common Ground Democracy essay. To summarize briefly here: (1) Dennis argues that adopting Condorcet Voting wouldn’t make any real-world difference, relying on Nick Stephanopoulos’s data without acknowledging the data’s limitations that Nick himself acknowledges–limitations made abundantly clear by last year’s presidential election; and (2) Dennis contends that a comparison of the campaign incentives created by IRV and Condorcet Voting yields the conclusion that IRV will depolarize politics while Condorcet Voting will make polarization worse. My view is that this analysis is mistaken, at least in many contexts, as is evident by considering again last year’s presidential election or the contemporary electoral dynamics in many red states, like Ohio. The bottom line is that “it’s wrong to argue that Condorcet Voting should be rejected entirely and everywhere.” Instead, as laboratories of democracy, states should consider Condorcet Voting along with IRV as among the available potential remedies for what’s currently wrong with their existing electoral system.