[EM] Approval Voting vs Instant Runoff Voting:

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

>Rolling would be Approval - an arbitrary system which is only effective
>(like every other election method) given perfect information.

No method is perfect without perfect information, though Condorcet
comes remarkably close. As Bart asked, what do you mean by effective?
And since there isn't perfect information in actual elections, then
are you saying that no voting system is at all effective, that all
are entirely ineffective? Effective for what?

Catchy, I don't know where you were while we were discussing strategy
differences among voting systems. "Effective" means effective for
accomplishing what we consider important to accomplish. Some of us
consider it important to get rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem,
and to try to advance majority rule, so that a majority can get its
way with a minimum of insincere strategy.

It's been carefully explained here how Approval does better than
anything short of Condorcet, in that regard. If Approval is "ineffective", 
then what do you consider effective?

>Its only
>advantage, that it involves no real insincerity, is a false one

Catchy, no one will know what you mean unless you start defining your
terms. What is "real insincerity"? The really extreme and drastic
form of insincerity is the dumping of one's favorite, by voting someone
else over him/her. Approval is the only method with which no one
ever has strategic incentive to do that.

WDSC is another criterion about insincerity in the form of order-reversal. A 
majority never needs that kind of insincerity in order
to make someone lose, if there's someone whom they all like better than
him/her. Approval meets WDSC. IRV & Plurality fail WDSC, as does
Copeland, Dodgson, and nearly all methods. Condorcet passes WDSC,
and also some more demanding strategy criteria, defined at
http://www.electionmethods.org

What you need to do is to write a glossary of all the undefined terms
that you use, and then ask Blake to list their definitions at his
website.

>, because
>it can only make that claim because Approval has no intuitive "sincere"
>vote.

Again, we have no idea what you mean by "intuitive 'sincere' vote".

It's widely agreed that an insincere vote means a vote that votes
an unfelt preference. For criteria-convenience, I include avoidably
leaving a sincere preference unvoted as a kind of insincerity, but
none of us consider it really insincere to leave a preference
unvoted.

But since no one knows what you mean by "intuitive 'sincere' vote",
no one can reply to you claim that Approval doesn't have one.

>Approval sucks. It does nothing to empower ordinary voters to ensure
>their vote counts.

As I recently just finished saying here, every pairwise preference that you 
vote in Approval is reliably & fully counted. In what sense, then
do you claim that no one's vote counts? Or that the ordinary voter's
vote doesn't count?

Do you want to suggest another voting system that meets your
vague standards better than Approval?

Mike Ossipoff

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