Making approval guarantee a majority.

[Charles Fiterman]

At 06:05 PM 10/6/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Minor correction:
>
>Bart Ingles wrote:
>
>Was:
>> [deleted]
>> As for the second defect, I don't think any method can guarantee a
>> majority of sincere votes.  For example, your Condorcet-Approval method
>
>Should be:
>As for the second defect, I don't think any method can guarantee a
>majority comprised of only sincere votes...

It is obvious that no method can guarantee a majority 
comprised of only sincere voters. A 33% B 33% C 33%,
nobody has a majority.

Let me make a modification to approval that fills even
this case in given real world elections. If you don't
vote you are counted as approving of all candidates.
Disaproving of all candidates is as easy as putting in
a blank ballot.

This guarantees a majority to all candidates unless a
lot more people start to vote. It strongly encourages
people to vote but doesn't apply force. You can't
gripe that much about people you voted for.