Doubts about Approval Strategy

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Rob L.--

You wrote:

Just like in first-past-the-post, I think that
some norms would evolve around Approval; what I'm not sure of is whether
they'd be an improvement over current conditions.

I reply:

How could it not be an improvement? Now voters dump their favorite
in order to support a compromise. With Approval they can support
the compromise without dumping their favorite. In fact, no one would
ever have any incentive to not vote for their favorite. I call that
a big improvement.

Now, the IRV promoters like to claim that it would turn into
Plurality voting, where everyone just votes for their favorite.
Right, the people who now abandon their favorite to vote for the
Democrat are going to suddenly start voting only for Nader? If they
did, that would be great, but obviously if they now think it's
necessary to help the Democrat, they still will, and they'll
vote for Nader and the Democrat.

You spoke of a strategy in the polls, of pretending that you're
not going to support Middle, and just voting for Favorite. Well
the voters on the other side of Middle will notice how strong your
side is, compared to theirs. If they outpoll you, they have no
reason to vote for Middle in the election. The Middle voters have
no reason to vote for an extreme candidate if it looks like Middle
is CW. For one thing, they know that you need them more than they
need you. For another thing, it's clear that they're the rightful
winner. Besides, with the 1-dimensional political spectrum that you
spoke of, most likely the 2 extreme candidates wouldn't be the ones
in a tie for 1st place, and that's another reason why the Middle
voters wouldn't feel a need to support one extreme against the other.

Mike Ossipoff


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