AV doesn’t even allow voters a free choice with their first preference

It would be easy to presume that a change from Fptp to AV would result in ‘more fair’ elections, due to the process itself being more complex. Because Fptp is not a proportional system voters are inclined to vote tactically. We know (or at least it is assumed here) that AV requires voters to be careful (somewhat tactical) with their 2nd preference because after that there is every chance that no lower preferences will be considered.

When it comes to our 1st preference, since a candidate reaching half of the total votes cast will be chosen regardless, then even if our 1st preference went against them we could not have prevented their victory so, the argument goes, we have a free choice under AV for our first preference. It is true that nothing can be done to prevent a victory for a candidate achieving more than half of 1st preferences but we might be concerned about a situation in which someone gets almost half. We are then concerned that our 2nd preference comes into play earlier than that of other voters and (for that reason) we would not want to vote for someone who is likely to do (fairly) well in the 1st round. Voting for a fairly popular party in the 1st round, under AV, is to take the risk that the 2nd preferences of other voters will be taken into account prior to ours. We do not want to vote (1st preference) for a genuine rival of our tactical (Fptp) choice because our 2nd preference might never be counted, it might be useful (for the sake of appearances and to send a message) to ‘risk’ giving our 1st preference to a very minor party but only if we are confident that our 2nd preference will come into play fairly immediately. Voting for a moderately popular candidate with our 1st preference risks not having our 2nd preference considered.