How to vote in Approval

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Dave wrote:

Ok, we are getting in too deep:
You like approval because I cannot say enough as a voter to make the
counting difficult.
I choke on approval because approve/disapprove sounds simple but is
hard to quantify when looking at actual candidates.
I like Condorcet because I CAN say the two things I care most about:
Approve of the candidate I MOST like.
Get in on deciding between the candidates most likely to win.

I reply:

I agree that that would be desirable. I'm just saying that Approval
may be attainable faster, and would make a big difference. Sure,
strategy dilemma would still remain, as you described. But I'm just
saying that at least that there's one kind of strategy that won't
be used: Favorite burying. That alone would bring big improvement.
You'd like more than that, and so would I, but I suggest Approval
at least as a more quickly-attainable interim reform. Of course I
have no objection to advocacy of Condorcet too, and I advocate it
myself when there's enough writing-space. But where it's necessary
to write something brief, or about just one proposal, I write about
Approval, for practical reasons.

Dave continued:

We are told IRV has been widely used for a long time.
We are convinced IRV can result in real life horror stories.
Have any of these actually happened?

I reply:

So far as I'm aware, the results-reporting in Australia's IRV elections
isn't of a type that would reveal the problems that we've discussed.
All I've heard of is reporting of how many votes each candidate had
in each round, with nothing about the rankings or pairwise comparisons.

But 3 different Australians have told me that it's common for
preferrers of 3rd parties to insincerely rank one of the big-2 in
1st place, so as not to "waste [their] vote".

IRV, then, has caused the kind of favorite-burying strategy that
I've been talking about.

Though it was hoped, when IRV was adopted there, that IRV would
encourage parties to run more than 1 candidate per party per election,
that hasn't happened. It's still unusual.

Dave continued:

If there are horror stories we should be warning the media that they had
best not get caught promoting a sick horse.

I reply:

I agree.

Dave continued:

Seems to me that Condorcet
should get mention at the SAME time as being even better for giving the
voter more power, even though the description is more complex.

I reply:

Sure, but it would have to be in situations where more space is
available. Approval can be mentioned in smaller writing spaces.

Often when I send something about Approval, I add something about
Condorcet. Of course sometimes that isn't feasible, if space is
limited, or if it's more effective to only mention one proposal.
Some letter editors don't like letters that mention 2 proposals, and
of course letters to the editor must be brief.

Dave continued:

As to stories: A shepherd who had a choice between losing one lamb and
losing none properly chose to lose none. Another shepherd who had a
choice between losing one and losing half the flock to wolves had best
settle for losing one.

I reply:

If he lost half his flock to find and save one, he might have difficulty
finding further employment as a shepherd, but he might feel like
doing that way anyway. If he looks for the one lost lamb, he
might not lose any, and will know, whatever happens, that he tried
to not lose any. Besides, one individual dying alone is arguably
worse than a whole flock attacked together. Other than that, I don't believe 
that numbers are meaningful in those situations.

Mike Ossipoff





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