[EM] The only strategy an Approval voter needs to know:

Kevin Venzke stepjak at yahoo.fr
Thu Aug 7 11:14:03 PDT 2003


Donald,

 --- Donald Davison <donald at mich.com> a écrit : > 
> Donald here:  You are correct, there is a simple strategy that will
> generate good results.
> 
> That strategy is for a voter to `bullet vote' his most preferred choice.

That's a decent strategy if the most preferred choice has a good chance of winning.
Otherwise that is going to be a wasted vote, and you should help a compromise
win.

> If and when a jurisdiction ever makes the mistake of voting into law any of
> the Low Choice Methods like Approval, Condorcet, or Borda, fear not, the
> voters of the major two parties will be able to destroy it at the ballot
> box by simply voting only their most preferred choice.  Approval will
> become Plurality.

This may be true if the voters are clearly divided into halves, and if they would
all prefer to go "all or nothing."  I doubt this is so, though.

Note that in Approval, each voter is able to decide for himself what kinds of 
spoilers he is willing to risk causing.  A voter can never cause Worst to beat 
Favorite, for instance.  So there isn't much incentive to obey your party if
you want to help a compromise in addition.

> 
> The success of Approval depends on the people making the foolish mistake of
> voting more than one candidate.  Approval is a deceptive method.
> 
> If the third party voters do make more than one vote, then Approval will
> become Irving.
> 
> In any event the best strategy to follow is to only make one choice and not
> help other candidates with your lower choices.  Let the other voters make
> the mistake of helping your most preferred choice.

"In any event"?  So you don't think the third-party voters should turn
Approval into IRV?

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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