[EM] Smallest Change for Greatest Improvement in Single-Seat Elections

[Steve Eppley]

Bart wrote:
> My suggestion would be for a limited form of Approval Voting,
> where the voter is allowed to vote for at most two candidates. 
> This could be called "Approval-With-Training-Wheels", and would
> help mitigate any concerns that voters wouldn't understand the
> ideal strategy and would vote willy-nilly for anyone they consider
> halfway acceptable. 

I don't see why Bart believes voters will understand the 
"ideal" strategy in that system, either.  A majority need to 
vote for the needed compromise or something close to it, 
which takes strategizing and requires pre-election polling 
data.  The more alternatives compete, the more difficult it 
will be to elect the best compromise, so alternatives will be 
deterred from competing unless they want to be spoilers.

If the Bucklin system was dropped from use because voters, 
allowed to rank candidates, tended to rank only one (for fear 
that ranking a second choice would defeat their favorite) 
wouldn't any variation of Approval have an even worse problem? 
 
In Bucklin, the voters' second choices are counted too when no 
candidate receives a majority of first choices.  (Bucklin is 
an iterative method.  If no candidate has a majority when both 
first and second choices are counted, then third choices are 
counted too, etc.)  With Bucklin it's pretty easy for voters 
to see how they can defeat their favorite by ranking a second 
choice, and it will be easy for them to see this with Approval.

So I think Bart has identified the wrong problem with Approval 
when he writes of a concern that voters will select too many.  
The real concern is that they will fail to include the best 
compromise(s) in their selection(s).

* *

It's easy for voters to miscalculate with Approval systems.  
Suppose there are three alternatives, and alternative C is 
the *last* choice of a majority.  But the majority is split 
on its first choice:

   30%:  A > B >> C
   25%:  B > A >> C
   45%:  C >> B > A

   I've used the symbol '>>' to indicate where voters might 
   be predisposed to draw the line between "approving" or
   "disapproving."  This doesn't consider strategic voting.

Unless they have enough pre-election polling data and 
organization to strategize, some of the majority may fail to 
select a second choice for fear of unnecessarily defeating 
their favorite.  When that happens, both A and B can lose.

Also, even when the majority succeeds in defeating C, it's 
clear from the above that though B has more support than A, 
B may have a slim chance of being elected, unless the C voters 
have the ability and polling data to strategize (select B).

So I feel Bart is wrong to claim that an Approvalish system 
will produce great improvement.  Allowing voters to rank 
the alternatives is not a drastic procedural change, in 
my opinion, and is justified by its greater improvement:
It would permit more candidates to compete without fear of 
spoiling, and would elect centrist compromises without 
anybody needing to strategize.


---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)