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It's also misleading because the simplicity of the appearance ballot paper disguises the complexity of the actual choice of how many boxes to tick in front of you. (Am I better picking my favourite candidate only or both the candidates I don't find entirely unacceptable in a tight three way race?)

> the actual choice of how many boxes to tick in front of you

With approval voting, you should consider each candidate independently: "Am I okay with this person winning the election?" The number of circles you fill in doesn't matter.

But the number of circles filled in by large segments of the electorate matter hugely, and most people's level of "am I OK with this person winning the election?" varies hugely, especially when there's a candidate they'd be really unhappy with on the ballot paper.

And what's great about said form is the order is determined by draw of a hat. Literally.

This is definitely a better way to support IRV, except that it depends heavily on people writing numbers that are recognizable by either computers or people when scoring.