[EM] There's nothing wrong with Average Rating.

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

There's nothing wrong with the Average Rating method. We also call it 
Cardinal Ratings (CR).

CR is strategically equiovalent to Approval: In CR, you maximize your 
expectation by giving maximum points to those candidates for whom you'd vote 
in Approval, and giving minimum points to the rest.

That's one reason why CR isn't emphasized much here, because it's 
strategically equivalent to the simpler Approval method.

But CR might very well be more winnable, more likely to be enacted than 
Approval, because CR is much more familiar to people. It's difficult to say: 
CR is more familialr, but Approval has much more modest balloting 
requirements.

One compromise would be to tell people about CR, then point out that all the 
CR versions are strategically equivalent to CR's 0,1 version, Approval. In 
that way, Approval is introduced as a version of the familiar CR. Approval 
is a point system, the 0,1 point system.

Another reason why CR isn't talked about more here: Many here prefer the 
deluxe Condorcet wv family of methods.CR & Approval are excellent, but they 
don't get rid of defensive strategy need to the degree that Condorcet wv 
does. I like all of those: Condorcet, Approval, CR. Maybe Condorcet can be 
achieved, or maybe, in some jurisdictions, the more modest CR or Approval 
would be the practical proposal.

If there's any possibllit that Coindorcet wv can be achieved, then it's what 
should be tried for. And right now there's no polling information available 
to tell us what would be accepted by people.

Mike Ossipoff

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