I'm not sure it's the only way. There are ranked-ballot systems that are good too, like Single Transferable Vote.
The point is, first-past-the-post has almost every possible flaw you can have in a voting system.
The point is, first-past-the-post has almost every possible flaw you can have in a voting system.
Sure, first-past-the-post is horrid, but if you expend political will, time, power, energy, money to reform the voting system, it's a tragedy to replace a horrible system with a bad one when we actually know of a good one. We will not get infinite, costless resources and chances for voting reform.