[EM] 02/09/02 - Approval favors certain candidates:

[Donald Davison]

02/09/02 - Approval favors certain candidates:

Dear Adam,
You wrote: "Perhaps it was best to let Mark's flippant response to your
flippant post stand alone..."

Donald: I don't recall reading Mark's response to my post.  I must not be
getting all my email, or most likely I deleted his post my mistake along
with some commercial posts.

Anyway Adam, I was not being flippant.  Approval has only limited honest uses.

Adam: "I've seen your post (and copy) informative material when speaking on
the subject of multi-winner elections.  But so far your posts on the
subject of single winner elections have essentially consisted of talking
down to those who support methods other than IRV."

Donald:  There is a difference.  In multi-seat election methods the
corruption lies in which rules are used, in single-seat methods the
corruption lies in which method is used.  The ABC methods are corrupt
methods.  So, it follows that I would object to corrupt methods with the
same vigor that I object to corrupt rules in STV.

Adam: "You say....approval is essentially good for nothing."

Donald:  That's about the size of it.  Approval should not be used in any
serious election because it favors certain candidates (the lower ones).

Adam: "If you please, give an example of an election where approval will
fail to produce a fair result."

Donald: Let's use the last Florida Presidential election.  The numbers were
about: 44 Bush,  44 Gore,  8 Nader,  and 4 Others.  Now, what do you
consider to be fair results?  Do you want a method that somehow, by hook or
by crook, will raise Nader's vote total up to be in the same range as that
of Bush or Gore?  If so, you have the same agenda as MikeO.  The ABC
Methods serve that agenda and Approval Voting will be the best of the three
at serving that agenda.  It is the most corrupt of the three, so it is
understandable that MikeO is promoting Approval Voting, he wants a method
that will do the most to elect a Nader type candidate even if 92 % of the
voters want someone else.

If Approval Voting was the method of choice in the last Florida election,
Nader would have had a good chance of winning, provided at least fifty
percent of the Bush and Gore voters made the mistake of foolishly giving
Nader a vote too.

In order for the election of Nader to become more of a certainty, the Nader
voters should only vote for Nader, no other candidate.  Let the Bush and
Gore voters be foolish (the Bush and Gore Voters are not going to be that
foolish).

Adam: "Or show some other strategic pitfall of approval voting."

Donald:  Approval Voting is a method that can be easily foiled, to the
extent that the method disappears.  Take some example that is like your
example of three near equal candidates, say 1010 A,  1005 B,  and 1000 C.

In politics there is a rule that could be written; "If a ploy exists,
someone will find it and we can be sure it will be used to win an
election."

Now, the question is: "When using the Approval Voting method, what ploy
could be used by one faction to win the above election?"   Answer: Your
faction should only vote for one candidate. (your candidate of course)

If the supporters of any one of these three candidates were to only vote
for their candidate, that candidate would have a very good chance of
winning.

Of course, the supporters of the other two candidates may do the same, then
the method of Approval Voting disappears and we are left with merely
Plurality.  This truth alone should make any sensible person reject
Approval Voting, but Approval is also deceptive.  Approval itself is a ploy
to win the election for one of the lower candidates.

The success of Approval Voting depends on deceiving most of the voters into
believing that it is safe to vote for more than one candidate.

The supporters of Approval are not being honest with the people when they
implies to them, "Vote for Bush or Gore if you must, but also give one of
your votes to Nader."  Or, "Of course, you want to vote for Bush or Gore,
but you have plenty of votes, give one to Nader."

By replacing ranked preferences with actual votes, MikeO hopes that with
more votes in the hot hands of the voters that enough of these excess votes
will fall on his third party candidate so that Nader will win.  He is
willing to have Nader win through the back door.  It's a con game MikeO is
playing and you have yet to realize it.

The Lower Choices are the back door.  The lower choices are not netural,
they are the reverse of the first choices.  If the first choices would have
been:  60 A, 30 B, and 10 C, the lower choices are  40 A, 70 B, and 90 C.
If all the lower choices are added to the first choices we end up with all
candidates being equal at 100 A, 100 B, and 100 C.  While this most likely
will not happen in a real election, this does point up the policy of
Approval Voting to help the lower candidates to become equal in votes to
the higher candidates.  The more lower choices a method uses, the more the
lower candidates are favored, the more corrupt that method is.  Approval
Voting uses all the lower choices, so it is the most corrupt.

Approval supporters want a method that uses more of the lower choices
because the lower choices contain a ratio of votes that favors the lowest
candidates.  The ABC methods are for people who believe that one of the
lower vote gathers should win the election.

This push for single-seat reform is not just for the Presidential election,
it is for all single-seat elections in the country, including all the
single-seat districts of the most important multi-seat elections, so there
is a lot at stake.  Candidates that cannot get enough votes need some ploy
like Approval to give them a leg up.


Donald