I only have knowledge of American politics, but it looks to me like the main benefit of AV is that it would reduce the problem of “spoilers”. A spoiler is when 3 candidates run for an office, and 1 of them has similar views to another but only gets a small portion of the vote. Then votes for the minor candidate actually work in favor of the major candidate who agrees with ver least, and thus is not competing with ver for votes. This, as you can see, directly thwarts the preferences of a small portion of voters. It also tends to thwart the preferences of a majority, because American elections are nearly always withing 1-3 percentage points of a tie. The AV system would let people cast symbolic votes for a minor third party, and put a major party as their second choice.
I only have knowledge of American politics, but it looks to me like the main benefit of AV is that it would reduce the problem of “spoilers”. A spoiler is when 3 candidates run for an office, and 1 of them has similar views to another but only gets a small portion of the vote. Then votes for the minor candidate actually work in favor of the major candidate who agrees with ver least, and thus is not competing with ver for votes. This, as you can see, directly thwarts the preferences of a small portion of voters. It also tends to thwart the preferences of a majority, because American elections are nearly always withing 1-3 percentage points of a tie. The AV system would let people cast symbolic votes for a minor third party, and put a major party as their second choice.