[EM] Approval reducing to Plurality

Raph Frank raphfrk at gmail.com
Mon Aug 30 01:56:18 PDT 2010


One of the things that the Burr dilemma assumes is that the voters are
split into 2 groups and each group rates their candidates as vastly
superior to any candidate from the other side.

However, in practice, that isn't true, at least for many people.
Approval (and condorcet) shifts power from the extremes towards the
centre.

Many voters probably wouldn't care which party wins the seat if the
choice is between 2-3 centrists.

Ofc, it matters a lot if you are one of the candidates, but matters
much less to society.

With party politics, it does matter which party wins the majority, though.

What is nice about approval is that even if each candidate is a
centrist, the "menu" can be different in each district.   You don't
just get the same 2-option menu in every district.



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