[EM] "majority" == "majority approval" ?

[Brian Olson]

I would like to propose a colloquial, common english solution to the  
debate about what majority is. A "majority candidate" is one with  
"majority support" or "majority approval". I think this would fit with  
the spirit of what most people would think of when they hear about  
'electing a majority candidate'.

We know how to do approval voting with a simple optimal zero-info  
strategy. So, you could measure based upon that. Alternately you could  
have the no-strategy 'do i approve of this candidate' voter.

There's already an infuriating amount of false mandate thrown to a  
candidate who gets voted for by 1/6th of the US population (and how  
many actually _like_ the candidate and how many are just going for  
what 1/20th of the population voted for in the primary). I don't want  
IRV to add to that by mislabeling candidates as having majority  
approval when they do not.


Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/