Under our current system, when a candidate wins with less than 50% of the votes, a majority of the votes are "thrown away."

Under RCV, voters are free to rank as many or as few candidates as they like. When a voter stops ranking, they are saying that they have no preference between the remaining candidates; i.e. if only the remaining unranked candidates were on a plurality ballot, they would not vote in that race. A voter’s ballot becomes exhausted only when the voter ceases to have a preference among the remaining candidates. Their vote isn’t being thrown away; rather the voter is deliberately choosing to no longer have a say should all their higher preferences be eliminated.