[EM] Approval Strategy for the Average Citizen

[Alex Small]

I do believe in the power of gut feelings.

I do agree that razor-edge voting decisions can and should be made by gut
feelings (better to trust your own decisions in a democracy than to let
third parties dictate your ballot to you).

However...


Although this discussion is full of affirmations that citizens not versed
in election theory can still make good decisions, overall the suggestion
of "toss a coin, and go with your gut if you don't like it" is probably a
little insulting to most people.

More to the point, imagine that we had a strong public campaign for
Approval Voting:  The people from the "our system is the best in the
world, don't invite chaos by changing it" school (most elected officials,
and most pundits in service to the Republicrats) would mock Approval
Voting as "Coin Toss Voting" were we to put this forward as a reasonable
strategy for "average citizens."

Then again, I'm the guy who wanted to build a big machine that tells
people what's best for them when marking ballots.....  ;)

Speaking of public campaigns for Approval Voting:  I did some looking
around and never found any hints that recent Russian elections use AV. 
Some time next week I'll call the Russian consulate to ask about their
elections.  Otherwise, it looks like my section of the proposed "White
Paper" would be "Well, in the Communist era and Gorbachev era (before the
attempted coup) the Russians used Approval Voting."  Not very
inspiring....


Alex


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