The spoilers of IRV and what's "most fair"

Here's an actual IRV poll, converted from a "favorite season" election, to 4 major parties.

The polling election had 50 voters for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. I "remapped" them to political parties in a way that makes sense in imagination and overall vote transfers.

MAPPING: (Party = Season)

• Independence Party = Spring (Up and coming)
  
• Republicans = Summer (High rollers)
  
• DFL = Fall (Preparing for global warming)
  
• Green = Winter (Waiting for their springtime in the sunshine)
  

Remember this is an ACTUAL election, real ballots and counting, real preferences, even if not real politics.

Round 1:
Rep=34%, IP=30%, DFL=28%, Green=8%
Eliminate Green

Round 2:
Rep=36%, DFL=32%, IP=30%
Eliminate IP

Round 3:
Rep=56%, DFL=42%
Winner Republican

However a top-two runoff would allow the IP candidate a head-to-head competition with the Republican:
This creates
Round 2:
IP=54%, Rep=44%

You can see the "centrist" IP party WON when competing head-to-head against the "right" republican, once the left "Greens and DFL" were out of the picture. You can see the "left" had a STRONG preference for the IP over the Republican.

However, IRV blindly eliminated a "second place" candidate for falling for third, without ever needing a head-to-head competition against EITHER competitor.

IRV "spoiled" the election for the IP and gave it to the plurality republican winner.

Now I'm not trying to judge WHICH candidate the DFL or IP deserved a chance to run head-to-head against the republican. I'm merely showing ONE could win, and the other count NOT.

IRV has a "spoiler" effect in a close 3-way race. Supporters between two good candidates "fighting for second" must make a strategic decision "Which candidate stands the best chance of beating the plurality winner?" Sometimes NEITHER stands a chance. Sometimes BOTH stand a good chance. However if ONE stands a better chance, THEN my strategic choice must be to vote for the one I judge who stands a BETTER chance in the final round.

That's the nature of the IRV spoiler.

Because of this dilemma I REJECT bottom-elimination IRV and prefer top-two IRV.

Top-two IRV makes the dilemma CLEAR to voters - that they have two sometimes contradictory goals - (1) wanting a candidate to make the final round (2) wanting a candidate who can WIN the final round.

This "spoiler" effect of runoffs is what continues to encourage "like minded" candidates to work together BEFORE election to get a shot at "top two".

In short my argument:
1) Plurality asks voters "Who do you want?" and gives us one chance to compromise.

2) A top-two runoff asks the same thing, but gives two chances. (top-two or perish)
3) A bottom-up runoff asks the same thing, but HIDES the fact there's still just two chances to win. (Make the final round, win the final round)

Until we support an election method like Condorcet methods, which can allow head-to-head comparisons among all viable candidates, I support a top-two process in partisan political elections as "most fair" to the strongest two candidates to face each other.

Postnote: I say "partisan" to mean "cut-throat" competition, where every candidate wants a shot at the final round. Top-two is half as brutal as plurality, but "best you can" do to reward voters for working together.