[EM] Query for Approval advocates

[Bart Ingles]

Why should it be considered important to find a majority when none
exists?  In my view, the very concept of 'majority' is meaningless when
there are three or more candidates, and appears to be based on several
logical fallacies including:

(1) Round number fallacy:  The 50% figure is viewed as magical because
it has the appearance of being a "natural" threshold.  Which it is--if
there are only two candidates.

(2) Circular reasoning:  Majority proponents generally have a particular
method in mind for arriving at a "majority".  This method is favored
because it produces a majority, but the majority is defined in terms of
the method.

(3) Equivocation:  The majority produced by a particular method is often
touted as though it were equivalent to an outright majority of
first-choice votes.  But it would be easy to make a case that a
candidate with a 49% plurality (or 45% or even 40%) really enjoys more
public support in a 3-way race than someone with only 26% of
first-choice votes and a similar number of 2nd-choice votes.  In fact,
don't some New York City elections require only a 40% plurality to avoid
a runoff?  This probably improves utility, if not Condorcet efficiency,
while reducing cost.

To be sure, it's nice when a clear winner emerges who has the support of
more voters than all other candidates combined, but I wouldn't attempt
to mandate this any more than I would attempt to mandate unanimity.

Plurality in some form is the only thing that makes sense, albeit a
plurality which is not split by votes given to competing candidates.

Bart


"John B. Hodges" wrote:
> 
> [...] The question
> I have is this: what if you STILL don't get a majority? For example,
> what if there are many, many candidates, the electorate is pretty
> close to evenly split, and everyone bullet-votes for their favorite?
> I know it's a hard case; if everyone bullet-votes, all election
> systems reduce to Plurality. But how, specifically, does MCA handle
> the mechanics of it? Has anyone written a formal description of MCA?