[EM] Approval Voting vs Instant Runoff Voting

[Buddha Buck]

At 11:26 AM 02-15-2001 +1100, you wrote:
>Forest,
>
>you wrote:
>
> >I would like to see that example.  You must have submitted it before my
> >time.
>
>I posted it only a few days ago, but it was jammed in at the bottom of a
>verbose message, so I'm not surprised if people didn't get to it.  Here it
>is again (slightly reworded);
>
>This question is open to all the strategically minded posters; Say with the
>above utilities (100, 25, 20, 0 - assign A,B,C,D respectively).  One opinion
>poll shows (and, being an approval election, these are approval polls so
>they show the predicted winner), that A will get 36 percent of the vote, B
>will get 40, C will get 45 and D will get 44.
>
>You even have information about the accuracy of the polls; accuracy within
>5% of the predicted outcome is 90% (that is, 90% chance that A will get
>between 31 and 41%), and, our general understanding of such polls claiming
>this kind of accuracy is that it is more likely to be closer to the
>predicted outcome than further away.  How should you vote?

I'm not up to date on all the strategies involved, but...

Without any strategy, based on my utilities, I'd probably vote approval on 
"A" and no approval on the others.  A looks so much better than the rest to 
me that I see nothing to be gained by the others.  B, the closest 
competator, is so far down from A that I'd not really be satisfied if B won 
instead of A.

However, with the poll results, I've a quandry.  A looks like he has a very 
low chance of winning, and the real race is between C and D.  Even though C 
isn't very good, he is (to me) much, much, MUCH better than D -- who I 
don't like at all.  As such, I feel I'd have to throw my support (and vote) 
towards C so that he has a better chance of defeating D.  Since this is 
approval, there is no reason for me to not also vote for my more preferred 
options.  So I'd vote for A, B, and C and against D.

I'd also look at those polls and bemoan the choice of candidates.  Not one 
candidate has the approval of the majority of the population.  Can't we get 
better candidates?

>Craig Layton