[EM] Approval for many candidate, non-partisan, multi-seat elections

[Rob Lanphier]

Hi folks,

As you saw earlier, some people on Wikipedia are considering a switch to
Bloc voting (plurality-at-large) for a multi-seat election, away from
Approval.

I had always thought Approval made the most sense here, but I'm starting
to see the wisdom of the criticism.  With a very large field, you have
to really dilute your vote to keep the crackpots you are afraid of out
of the running.  That pretty much means voting for everyone who you
don't explicitly disapprove of.

Strategically speaking, Range is the same as Approval.  Your optimal
strategy is to give everyone who is mildly competent the highest score
possible.  People may vote sincerely in initial elections, but will
learn the optimal strategy over several high-stakes elections.

There's a good argument to be made against STV in this context.  This
isn't about finding a diversity of opinions (proportionality)...they
seem to want a cluster at the median.

So is Condorcet (specifically Schulze(wv)) the best recommendation to
make here, with each winning candidate popped off the top of the stack
until the five seats are filled?  Or is there arguments to be made that
some proportionality is always a good thing, and therefore a
proportional system should be used?

Rob