[EM] Approval strategy in close three-way race?

[Dave Ketchum]

Thanks for the reminder that methods sometimes matter.

For many elections there are only one or two likely winners, and about any 
method, including Plurality, will satisfy.

Here we have three candidates and many voters DESIRE to say three things:
      I WANT my favorite to win.
      I WANT to do my best to be sure the rottenest lemons lose.
      I WANT to say all I can for a second choice, that this one should 
win, but only if my favorite loses.

Looking over the field:
      Plurality offers no way to give three different rankings.
      Approval has the same problem for this voter.
      IRV will let me rank in the three levels I want, but does not 
promise  to always look at all that I say.  For example, assume I am among 
32 who vote Bush, Clinton, 24 vote only for Clinton, and 34 only for 
Perot.  The 24 get discarded and Perot wins without the counters noticing 
that 56 of us (32+24) like Clinton better than Perot's 34.
      Condorcet reads all that the voters say, and will award Clinton for 
the 56 votes (per wv - looks like Bush wins per margins).

DWK

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 11:41:59 -0700 Rob Lanphier wrote:

> Hi folks,
> 
> As I alluded to before, I'm still a little shakey when it comes to the
> optimal Approval strategy.  So, first, let me paraphrase what I believe
> is the right strategy, and then ask about a case that's been bugging me.
> 
> My understanding is that current strategy involves classic two-party
> politics.  The idea is that you pick your favorite front-runner, and
> every candidate you like better than the front-runner.
> 
> However, what happens in a tight three-way race?  This is often the case
> that gets thrown in the face of IRV advocates as a weakness in IRV, so
> it's only fair to ask what happens in Approval.
> 
> Let's take a look at the landscape of the U.S. Presidential race.  There
> was a time (June, 1992) where it was virtually a three-way tie.
> According to Gallup, Ross Perot lead the race for president, favored by
> 34% of Americans, compared to 32% for Bush and 24% for Clinton.  These
> numbers shifted around significantly during that time, such that it was
> really hard to tell which of the three was a "front-runner".  Had the
> election been held right then and there, picking out just two
> front-runners would have been difficult.
> 
> So, what's the right strategy in Approval?
> 
> Rob

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  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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