[EM] The None of the Above Chorus:

[Forest Simmons]

There is indeed a good use of None of the Above candidate (NOTA) related
to Approval!

The NOTA candidate on a preference ballot (i.e. a ballot requiring a
ranking of the candidates) is a natural marker between the approved and
disapproved candidates.

This makes Approval Completed Condorcet practical without having to use
the start of truncation as the approval cutoff. So it allows distinctions
among the disapproved as well as among the approved.

If we eliminate at the outset those candidates that have less approval
than NOTA, then we have a method equivalent to Demorep's ACLA or ACMA
(depending on whether the completion is by elimination of Least Approved
or by the acceptance of Most Approved), but using a standard preference
ballot.

See Demorep's recent postings (and mine) under the "Yes tie breaker" 
threads.

As I mentioned there, this method appears to satisfy the following two
valuable criteria:

There is never any strategic advantage to be gained by ranking another
candidate .... (1) as high as your favorite, or (2) as low as your most
despised.

I have some ideas for using this NOTA candidate in the five slot method,
but I don't want to detract from the main idea in this posting.

Forest