[EM] Approval reducing to Plurality

[Juho]

On Aug 30, 2010, at 11:56 AM, Raph Frank wrote:

> 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.

Also small differences will do. It is enough if opinions R1>R2>L,  
R2>R1>L and L>... are the most common ones (and right wing co- 
operation may make one of their (about equal strength) candidates  
win). Typical right wing voters have to decide whether to approve the  
other right wing candidate or not. Most left wing voters should  
probably not approve any of the right wing candidates.

>
> 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.

Yes, if voters have no strong bonds to the candidates (that maybe come  
outside of the parties or may be acceptable to many people across  
party boundaries). Often the situation is however such that one likes  
the candidate of one's own party and strongly wants that candidate to  
win (even if the other right wing candidate would be much better than  
the left wing candidate). The competitive nature of elections may thus  
lead to not giving support to candidates that are ideologically close  
but that are strong competitors to one's own favourite.

>
> 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.

What kind of election did you refer to? Did the districts maybe have  
separate elections or separate electors to be elected, or just  
different set of mind although the votes will be counted for the whole  
country?

Juho