[EM] approval strategy

[Russ Paielli]

Let me try my first "normal" post. At the risk of repeating a point that 
has probably already been made many times in the past ...

Voter strategy in Approval will be simple at first, but it could become 
very difficult later. Simple formulas are nice, but they cannot resolve 
the dilemma that voters could eventually face.

Let's say that Approval has just been adopted. Well, Greens will vote 
for their Green candidate plus the Democrat and everyone else they 
prefer to the Democrat. That's the easy part.

But now let's say that Approval has been in use for several election 
cycles, and the Green is starting to catch up to the Democrat. Well, the 
Green Party will certainly urge their supporters to drop their vote for 
that pesky Democrat. But if they take the advice, they risk handing the 
election over to the Republicans, of course.

A familiar dilemma? Of course. It's the "lesser of two evils" problem 
rearing its ugly head again, albeit in a slightly different form. But 
this time it may actually be worse. In plurality, the strategy is 
obvious, but in Approval it won't be. Many Greens who would abandon 
their Green candidate without a second thought under plurality will be 
more tempted, under Approval, to instead abandon the Democrat if the 
Greens actually have a chance. And of course the Greens will say that 
they *do* have a chance "if only you schmucks would vote for us and not 
the Democrat." Heck, they're already saying that under plurality, but 
now they will have some credibility.

The bottom line is that Approval Voting is not a panacea, but I'm sure 
everyone here knows that. Having said all that, it *does* give voters 
more choices, and I think it is well worth a try. But we need to start 
at the bottom, with local elections. And we need to understand that 
public skepticism is not completely unwarranted.

--Russ