[EM] IRV - Approval, Condorcet - Approval hybrids

[Chris Benham]

  Kevin,
On Monday, Sep.1, 2003 you wrote:

"David's method gives me a similar, simpler idea that would seem to be an
improvement over IRV.  The method would be:

1. The voters rank the candidates they would be willing to support, and also
place an approval cutoff.  (Alternatively, all candidates ranked non-last
could be considered "approved.")
2. While there is no (voted) majority favorite, eliminate the Approval loser.
3. Elect the voted majority favorite.

Actually, I think this is Chris Benham's idea, suggested as a solution to the
strong FBC problem.  At the time I thought it would always elect the Approval
winner, but that's clearly wrong.  An example, where all ranked candidates are 
considered approved:

20: C>A
35: A>B
45: B

B is the Approval winner, but A is a majority favorite once C is eliminated.

A problem with this method, as well as with IRV and David's method (I am pretty
sure), is the incentive to up-rank compromises in attempt to achieve a majority
earlier."

CB:In step 1, why did  you specify that voters only rank the candidates "they would
 be willing to support"? What the hell is the "approval cutoff" for? Pardon my tone,
but I have no sympathy for the stupid tendency to want to confuse ranking with rating.
I am strongly of the opinion that the default placement of the approval cutoff should
either be between 1 and 2, or nowhere.In a healthy democracy (in which the voters are
not apathetic and the nomination process is fair and open)it can reasonably be assumed
that most voters consider their first preferences acceptable.There is no reason to
assume that they find any other candidates acceptable, and I see no reason why they
shouldn't be allowed to rank candidates they find unacceptable.

You didn't mention how you think equal preferences should be handled. I assume you share
my opinion that they should not be split.In that case,what do you think should happen
when there is more than one "voted majority favourite"? I guess you favour the MCA-like
solution of just electing the candidate with the "biggest majority". I strongly think that
if there are 2 majority favourites then they should runoff. But what if there are more than
two? There are many plausible alternatives. 

Which leads me to another idea on how to count these ballots: a series of elimination runoffs
between the 2 (remaining) candidates with the fewest approvals.
This of course ensures that a CW will be elected if there is one, but does that mean that
compliance with Participation has (therefore?) been sacrificed?

Chris Benham