It would indeed be awesome if every state adopted some form of RCV (there are even better systems out there for fairly representing the voters but RCV will still be an improvement over our flawed current system) but if it would result in a greater likelihood of more third party candidates winning states, we would have to clarify who becomes president if none of the candidates got 51% of the electoral vote. Right now, that seems to be an issue with lots of gray areas.
RCV will, by definition and carried to its expected conclusion, result in someone getting more than 50% of the votes, won’t it?
What would happen if ranked choice was combined with the EC is that each state would still be picking a single winner, but it would be easier for third parties or independents to carry individual states. As a result there is the potential that the Democrats and Republicans would each end up with 40% of the electoral votes (by absolute victories in some but not all states), and other parties would have the other 20%.
This could still work if it was possible either for losing candidates to pledge their delegates to another candidate in order to form a majority coalition. My guess is the first time this happens (assuming there was no legal obstacle) it would get really messy and some of the parties wouldn’t know what coalition their voters wanted them to form, but after a few goes at it people would start to figure out out. It would be especially messy the first time because voters would likely just vote for preferred candidates not knowing that the consequences of failing to form an EC majority is that it gets kicked to the house - once they realize that they’ll have to start voting tactically in a new way - essentially in a case where your caucus is likely to have a minority among house state delegations, you have to either to try to vote for an absolute majority to prevent this scenario, or you have to vote for a minority party you’re sure will be able to form a coalition you prefer over any party that could get an absolute majority.
What DeadTreasSecretaries said. RCV would work wonderfully for almost any state or state-wide elections, like the senate or House, but the EC queers it mightily for electing a president.
Personally, I think every State should apportion their electoral votes like Maine does. That would get rid of many of the problems we attribute the the EC, most of which are really problems with “winner takes all”.
Where’s the gray area? The Constitution is clear that the House elects the President in elections where no candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes. (And the Senate similarly elects the VP in the same circumstances.)
Or are you talking more about how people might not stand for it if ranked choice voting causes a contingent election more often than three times every 250 years, causing a constitutional crisis of sorts? That’s certainly something to consider.