There are circumstances, as in the examples above, when both instant-runoff voting and the 'first-past-the-post' plurality system wouldn't elect the Condorcet winner. (In fact, FPTP can elect the Condorcet loser and IRV can elect the second-worst candidate, who would lose to every candidate except the Condorcet loser.) When there is a Condorcet winner that IRV doesn't elect, a majority would by definition prefer the Condorcet Winner to the IRV winner. Supporters of the Condorcet criterion see it as an important criterion when choosing a voting method. They see the Condorcet criterion as a natural extension of majority rule. Condorcet methods tend to encourage the selection of broadly supported candidates who appeal to the median voter. Here is an example that is designed to support IRV while making Condorcet look bad: