[EM] Approval Strategy

[Adam Tarr]

Arnie Urken wrote:

>Please correct me if I am wrong--I have been away from the list for a 
>while--but isn't this strategy similar to the finding in the literature 
>that says that optimally, approval votes should be cast for each choice 
>that equals or exceeds the voter's average utility rating of the candidates?

It's not that similar actually.  The "A" strategy discussed here says that 
whether you vote for a candidate or not depends solely on your ranking of 
them relative to the top two candidates.  If one were to vote for all 
above-average utility candidates, then your vote would be influenced by the 
addition of a minor candidate to the race who has no support and no chance 
of winning.

Furthermore, I don't think the literature says "optimally, approval votes 
should be cast for each choice that equals or exceeds the voter's average 
utility rating of the candidates."  The optimal choice depends not only on 
the utility of a given candidate, but also the estimated probability of 
that candidate winning the election.  Mike Ossipoff and Richard Moore 
have  contributed a lengthy recent thread on this subject; see "delta-p 
approval strategy" in the archive.

-Adam

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